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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
HUMAN SOCIETY 


Books by 
CHARLES AGE VIEW OOD 


SOCIOLOGY AND MODERN 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
Revised Edition, 1924 

(The American Book Company) 


SOCIOLOGY IN ITS PSYCHO- 
LOGICAL ASPECTS, 1912 
(D. Appleton & Company 


THE SOCIAL PROBLEM, 1915 
(The Macmillan Company) 


INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL 
PSYCHOLOGY, 1917 
(D. Appleton & Company) 


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN 
SOCIETY 
(D. Appleton & Company) 





THE PSYCHOLOGY 
OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY _ 
on apni OF Pi} Pe ‘ 


f* 


BY f 8. ¥ 


CHARLES A. ELLWOOD 


a 


PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI | aa 

AUTHOR OF “SOCIOLOGY IN ITS PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS, AN G08 900!) 

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY,” “SOCIOLOGY AND" 
MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS,” ETC, 





D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK LONDON 


1926 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


PREFACE 


This book is intended to supersede my Sociology in Its 
Psychological Aspects and my Introduction to Social Psy- 
chology. It is not a revision of those books but is an entirely 
new work. The progress of both sociology and psychology 
has necessitated a restatement of the theories of the earlier 
books from a more objective and scientific point of view. 
This book is designed as an elementary text in sociological 
theory, though the more purely biological portions of so- 
ciology, such as the theory of population, etc., are in it 
taken for granted. The sub-title, “An Introduction to So- 
ciological Theory,” is intended to emphasize that the problems 
with which the book deals are those of sociology, rather than 
psychology in the strict sense. 

In the main, the method of the book is the method that 
has been called that of the “‘participant observer.” The book 
should be used by the student, therefore, as a sort of labora- 
tory manual, its generalizations to be tested so far as possible 
by the observation of social groups with which the student 
has had experience. Illustrative material will also be found, 
however, in written history, in anthropological books, and in 
works in sociology, especially in my elementary text, So- 
ciology and Modern Social Problems. Such qualitative 
analysis of the determinants in group behavior is necessary 
before quantitative analysis can be fruitfully undertaken. 

For the sake of clearness, and to prevent misunderstand- 
ing, it may be well to present a brief outline of the concepts 





1 This fact must explain certain omissions and peculiarities such 
as the division into sixteen chapters, corresponding to the usual num- 
ber of weeks in a semester, 

Vv 


vi PREFACE 


and problems which the author considers fundamental in 
sociological theory.. The first of these concepts is that of 
the “group.” It is the concrete group, rather than the 
abstract society, that is the primary datum of present-day 
sociology. But groups are of many sorts. However, Pro- 
fessor Cooley has made it plain that the work of the so- 
ciologist and the social psychologist must start with the face- 
to-face or “primary groups,’ and that “secondary groups” 
must be understood through the study of face-to-face 
groups. Such groups can be observed, and theorizing can 
thus be brought up against observable facts. The situation 
or stimuli and the behavior of such a group, the processes of 
interaction or interadjustment among its members, of “inter- 
stimulation and response,” in brief, “the social process,” can 
be studied concretely. The method of “coordination” or “co- 
adaptation” which maintains the unity of the group and 
which enables it to function as a unity, as well as “co- 
operation” and “conflict” as different aspects of adjustment 
among its members, can be observed and studied in the 
concrete. The common values and common attitudes pre- 
vailing in a group, in other words, the “social values” and 
“social attitudes,” are accessible to investigation. The most 
ordinary observation shows that the individuals of a group 
get these common values and common attitudes through 
“intercommunication.” The web of intercommunication in 
a group carries its values, which we call the “group tradi- 
tion,” and also its practical attitudes, which we call “cus- 
toms.” The tradition and customs of a group taken together 
make up what we know as its “culture.” Here is another 
fundamental category for human groups, scarcely less im- 
portant than “intercommunication.” But the “social pat- 
terns” passed along in culture are nothing more, if looked 
at psychologically, than a series of “mental patterns” passed 
from individual to individual in a group by “imitation” and 
“intercommunication.” Embodied in tradition these give 


PREFACE vii 


“continuity” to the group life. They have to be acquired 
or learned by each individual of the group, as all culture, 
so far as we know, is acquired by the individual through 
learning. Hence, “the learning process’ becomes another 
fundamental concept or category for sociology. Changes in 
group behavior are brought about through this learning 
process. Group “discussion” is one phase of this process in 
social change; “group opinion” is another phase, indicative 
of the construction of a new coordination in group life. 

Using these fundamental categories, the problems of group 
behavior become subject to scientific analysis and explana- 
tion. Thus the unity of the group can be explained in terms 
of the process of interstimulation and response and co- 
adaptation among its members. The continuity of the 
group, again, can be explained in terms of the process of 
intercommunication, and the resulting growth of tradition 
and custom, which go to make up the culture of the group. 
The changes within the group can be explained by this 
same process of intercommunication, functioning with ref- 
erence to new situations, so that by a learning process new 
values and new attitudes become diffused throughout the 
group. So far as the group achieves harmonious adjust- 
ments within itself, we have the condition that is known 
as “social order.” So far as the group by the process of 
change achieves superior adjustments, increasing group ef- 
ficiency and group harmony, we have what is known as 
“social progress.”’ 

It will be observed that these concepts and problems, which 
the author regards as fundamental in sociological theory, are 
substantially the same as those proposed by a number of 
recent books in the sociological field. However, those who 
are familiar with the author’s previously published works, 
especially his Introduction to Social Psychology, will per- 
ceive that he has for some time made use of these concepts 
and problems in developing sociological theory, and that this 


vill PREFACE 


book is the result of the development of his sociological 
thought. 

This book practically takes up the problem of group be- 
havior where Allport’s Social Psychology, if we leave out 
of account the last chapter of that book, leaves it off.2 Un- 
like Allport, however, the author has made no attempt to 
make use of Freudianism and other recent debatable psy- 
chological hypotheses. He believes that these are not yet 
established as a part of scientific psychology, and therefore 
should not be introduced to the elementary student. Even 
if they become established, they will not materially affect the 
more general psychological theory upon which this book is 
based. An elementary text in sociological theory, the author 
believes, should make use only of the more generally ac- 
cepted facts and principles of psychology. This is all the 
more true because the dependence of sociology upon in- 
dividual psychology is general, and not a matter of detail. 
Even if some of the psychology of this book is inadequate, it 
will not affect the general argument of the book. It may 
be well to repeat that the book does not attempt to solve 
psychological problems, but sociological problems. 

For the convenience of students a select list of references 
has been appended to each chapter. The first named ref- 
erence is especially commended in connection with the chapter. 
Chapters I to III are introductory; Chapters IV to VIII 
contain the central theories of the book; while Chapters 
IX to XVI develop these theories with reference to certain 
special problems. 

The author finds it impossible to acknowledge his in- 
debtedness to all his colleagues in sociology and social psy- 
chology, but he wishes publicly to acknowledge the assistance 
which he has received from his colleagues in sociology at 


2 Of course, this does not mean that this book is a development of 
the psychological principles employed by Allport. James, Dewey, 
Thorndike, and Woodworth furnish the leading principles used. 


PREFACE ix 


the University of Missouri, Professor A. F. Kuhlman, and 
Mr. Herbert Blumer, who have read the entire manuscript 
and made many suggestions and also assisted in the cor- 
rection of the proofs, 


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CONTENTS 


PREFACE e ° . e ° ° ° ° . ° °. e ‘eo ° . s ° 
CHAPTER 


PsA STUDY OR THE MIBOUB Sy, Sa ini hein nuh wariiaaehas ier ose 


ihe Naturé of Social Science io Fetes, as 
Social-or Group Life. . . ptt A APL 08a ee 
Evolutionary Phases of Social Tae 
Forms of Group Life . . ; 
Sociology and Social Pachdloxy : 
The Problems of Sociology . 
Bearing of ect of ae ie pon Other Rricnves 
History Se ii tether i Ma A 
Economics 
Political Science 
Ethics ai hittar oy 
The Science of Tedifedtion 
The Applied Social Sciences / ; 
The Classification of the Social Sereace ‘ 
Scientific Methods of Studying Human Society 
The Anthropological or Comparative Method 
The Historical Method Noa? Via ah ta Let 
The Social Survey Method : 
The Method of Deduction from Biadey Hee Daye 
chology ; ; 
Philosophical esi peone: and a NG eae Methods 


II. Group Lire Anp OrcGANiIc EvoLuTIon 


Organic Evolution and Social Evolution 

Relations of Higher to Lower Phases of Teniaton 

Organic Evolution and the Nature of the Individual 
Individual Differences Say 
Differences of Sex . 

Differences of Race . 

The Origin of Group Life Seon ninatS : 
Social Life in Part a Function of the Food Process 
Social Life in Part a Function of the Process of 

DIOTEUSEM ETA RU EIN e FEROS CoG) cto NMC) es Ne 
xi 


PAGE 


xii CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
Social Life in Part a Function of the Reproductive 

Process : Bests Mi UA Caled revs SY og 2,1 

The Origin of Eran Rae 5 Wha Ar mi S7 


Distinctive Factors in Human Socials Evolution ESO 
The Nature of Primitive Human Social Life . . . 66 


III. Group Lire anp, Menta’ EvoruTion .... 20% hia 70 


Organic Evolution and Mental Evolution . .. . 70 
Original Human Nature . . we cies eee 
The Passive View of Human Nature 7) 
The Hedonistic View of Human Nature . . . . = 97 
The Egoistic View of Human Nature . . . .. 78 
The Individualistic View of Human Nature . . . 79 
Social Adaptation . . Aree aR 
The Different Levels of aan Behaviee aia See Reel bciy eee 
Hereditary or Instinctive Reactions . |. ss. . 83 


Acquired WPT abitsind igh) oo as i alee eee ede 
Feeling aM yon el ig terse BANS FD) Mae OI ae nn, See 
Intelligence ney 4 A Ce Bre. Bese (h dele ea ee 
Rationality . IOI 


The Complexity Ae Modifiability of Human Benes 105 

The Social Character of Human Behavior, Feeling, and 
Paice tie ewe 2) AN ates SL Ot eae 

The Active Factors in Association. See omni ot hee fae ee 


IV. Primary Groupe LireE—tTHE Forms or Human Asso- 


CIATION , 117 
Forms of Association. . . Me aa et 
The Social Function of Primary ‘Groups tel erik Mee 
‘he'Process of ‘Socialization; 25s. +: wig) cae ee ee 
The, Transmission of :Culture.) 4 | 5). <.oqip cuieien he eet eae 
‘The Origin’ of: Social-:Patterns >\\s “vn aa 

The: Contribution, of the /Famuily > 45.2 ee ee ea 

The Contribution of the Neighborhood . . . - 131 

The Contribution of the Play Group .. . . .° «132 
Secondary Groups . 134 
The Importance of the Fon es ‘Assoeia Henin or "the 

Type of a Social Group . . 137 
Classification of the Forms of ‘AssbcAtone or “Types 

of :Social’;Groups’ je 

V. Tue UNITY oF THE Group AND Group ACTION . . . 144 
The Nature of the Interactions within a Group . . 144 
Social Co6drdination . . RR | els a ee 

Social Coordination and Shetsl Unity «ates tT an gee 
Social Codperation and Coérdination . . . . . 4149 


Social Coordination and Social Organization . . 150 


CONTENTS inet 


CHAPTER PAGE 
Objective Expressions of Social Codrdination . . . 150 
Subjective Accompaniments of Social Codrdination . 152 

Coordinating Feelings SE LUCH a Mares ty in B a Hats ES 2 
Social Controi’.7 tsa: Pee ICES) CMOS ABE EE 
Limits of Social Goneduenan SU cate E aN ioe rite tek SO 
Group Will and Group Individuality . . . . . . 159 
Group Egoism . . HON cone. G 6 hy OL 


The Causes of Social fee Arad wes ne an a Say ene Ca 
Environmental Conditions icc. Geer gen yk Miah ee oh a! 1 YOR 
biolagical Conditions); yy) Hei Maleneee renee ey 166 
Instinctive Tendencies PUA iD fies os 1 Aco a Re NEORLD 4 OZ 
PIADItS ania ae eh. kal anti ilo) LC TOR 


Feelings .... SP aileie yy) sae em pmemenenNeL e T  TOG 
Ideas and Wales Me SHEE) Xs ake etaeeesT at os an LO 
Conscious toocial Control. fig. /h0 (Cae ena us Taco) Spar 
The, Causes of; Social Disintegration (7 Wer 6 oon) 77 
Interest Groups and Social Disintegration . . . 179 
Conflict between Groups . . Shan eka aa NO GORRY 0) 'ea.NNt LOO 
Conflict within the Social Gain Vahl ace aMEn a miata atty LOE 
individuals social Matladjustmentiy 2) 8s ah Re Or ete 
VI. Tue ContTINUITY oF THE Group AND Its CuLTURE . . 188 
we eeNnysical basis, Of DOCIAl MOnemiyity: le viata ia meee 
Rist aut | USTOM aE MLMMIALION iting our anes te TOO 
ane) Social. Tradition '.). 192 


Comparison of Tradition to Heredity afd to Menery 197 
MMe. OOCiIat Valdity Of: Lraditiogus. ue ete. -e) les aLOO 


PetacitOnaisil) ve. ri de She Sa ON ao 8 
inewsocial Mind"... 201 
The Function of Brnare ence in ncn ontantity 203 
Social Assimilation . . etn whe tateee earn ths neaeOd 


Static Society and Gaerne tan! PRM hares aly As Ka Or) 


VII. CHANGES WITHIN THE Group: NorMAL ... . . 214 


LInconsciolism social “Chanve iii owt wei On. i 2TA 
Imitation and Social Change . . Hae EM ea Re 
The Mechanism of Conscious Social | echanee SP ESSERE a) 
Social Self-Consciousness . . RCN Der + ena a, 
The Function of Public Tiscrissiod oe Bi pa hivers. 8 
The Formation and Function of Public Opinion pst er 
ihe iutiction OLeoocml Leadershipiy:) sevice). s 234 
Qualities Needed for Leadership . . . .. . . 237 
Group Action . . 238 

The Alternation of Creal ei fo eairieiie Peviade 
in History ats LARRR ea beak 10 \ ol einer 


Confusion in Periods fs Transition EW ihedi ice Vis. ceu 3 '° Gia eee 
Radicalism and Conservatism . « »« « «3 »© w t 243 


Xiv CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
Individualism ‘‘andCollectryismscgies) ecg de tees 
Dynamic Society: and: Civilization.) )), Ga); se aes 


VIII. CHANGES WITHIN THE GRoUP: ABNORMAL . . 


The Causes and Consequences of Social Immobility 
The Psychology of Revolution. . : 
Inadequate Psychological Theories pt “Revelation : 
The Role of Destructive Criticism and Disintegrat- 
ing Ideas in: Revolutions sed! (Ae ies re ao ae 
Mobs in Revolutionary’ Pertodssive SU eae es oR 
The State of “Chronic Revolution” . . 
The Sociology of the Dictatorship . 
Reactions after Revolutions : 
Illustrations of the Theory of the Ovivin éfi Reve 
lutions .. wigs Peg Per 
The Prevention ve Social Revolitions rap der 
Catastrophic Change in Social Evolution . . . 
Reversions;) in) Civilization (Mii) Quay a anes 
Causes of Cultural’ Decadence’. “ny, Pye. 


TX INSTINCE/ANDACGROUR io LE ea alc at iaiine ike ogni ee 


Wrong Uses of Instinct in Social Theory 
Recent Theories Regarding the Social Brontneanbe 
OF MINStICE yn hte ae Nt MMOL EE 
The Nature of Human lasinets 0 iii hd Dna aaa Me reals g 
The Marks of Instinctive Tendencies 
The Psychological Conception of the Tuatinetive Bie 


ment in Human Behavior . . . : 
Instinctive Tendencies as Factors in Peete Social 
Life Lona eA 


Instinctive pendeneiee Be ata Tnstitonne Tata 
Instinctive Tendencies and the Family 
Instinctive Tendencies and the Larger Human Groups 
Instinctive Tendencies and Human Conflicts . . 


Instinctive Tendencies and the Economic Life . . 
Conclusions . , Pers ee ME 
Instinctive Teieiees ad Cwthares 0 i ae a 
Instincts and Existing Civilization . . ae ts 


Reversions to the Brutelike Level of Behavton Pe 
Instinctive Interests and Beliefs & ai.9)8 1290 % 
Instincts .and. Social Progress) (vis cause wn 

Instincts and Social Reconstruction . . .. . 


XX CINTREERIGENCE -AND GROUP LIFE. Oe ee 
Intellectualistic Views of Human Society . . . . 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
Recent Theories as to the Social Function of Intelli- 
gence . Dab Ore PU ec 
The Nature of (Hunan Tmaltiecnce 
Rationalization nebo) sph x 
PUAtIONalitys - eh as wis BET Oe g 
Intelligence and Human faoitions PG aie Ay te 
The Rationalization of Institutions . . . . 
Intelligence and Culture . . Os Ot 


Mental. Patterns and Their Oy icon 

Invention. and Discovery 

The Accumulation and Digan of Reeedee: 

Intelligence and Social Progress 

Social Imagination and Social Brose: 

The Intellectual Freedom of the Individual and isos 
cial Progress . . Os 

Intellecttial Leadership aad Social Progress Ss Para 

Collective /ACHIevement i) atit's vices 6) des kwh ioc 


XI. Imrration AND Group LIFE ..’. 


The Nature of Imitation 

The Connections of Imitation mith Other Mental 
Processes . . A FU SSB? 6a) Oh ee Roe a eS 

The Nature of Suppestion , ; 

The Imitation Theory of Society . BS at i 

Imitation as a Factor in Human Society . . . 
Imitation and the Diffusion of Social Patterns 
Fashion . Air Be lin Ray ties ih Wy Siig he Rae 
The Behavion of Cicada GOA Atle 

Imitation as a Factor in Social Order See ae Waa 

imitation. as a)Factor in Social. Progress...) A. 
Presto tision of. | Culture | Shel ea ie ta 
mibinvoranhicon Parallels) «audi s seataA ed welts 


XII. Freevinc anp Group Lire... RT IN a aaa 
The Function of Feeling in tants Eife Prt. 
Pecune and 7 0cial  Valuesn. 4h) to MORSE nn 


Feeling and Social Motivation 
The Nature of Sympathy ; 
The Relations of Sympathy and Aiden: 
The Connection of Sympathy with the Conscioushess 
of Kind «. : 
The Sympathy Theory of Suciety 
Sympathy as a Factor in Human Society 
The Social Function of Charity F 
‘Sympathy as a Factor in Maintaining Social Order 


XV 


PAGE 


Bit 
316 
317 
318 
319 
320 
322 
323 
326 
328 
330 
331 


333 
335 
338 


Xvi CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
The Sentiment of Kinship toa ; 
Sympathy as a Factor in Social Revere 
The Cultivation of Sympathy and Altruism . 
The Cooperation of Feeling and Intelligence 


XIII. Soctat Orper 


The Problem of Social bates Aa tie ps 
Social Control . 
Socialization PRI eter yond Woke MRT Ra aL ess: 
Social Morale i 
Government and Law as Oitearte of Bociad Gonttok 
Religion as a Means of Social Control 
Morality as a Means of Social Control . . . 
Humanitarian Ethics . . oe anes 
Education as a Means of Social ‘Conttel : 
Like-Mindedness and Social Order 
The Conflict of Ideals 
Conflict and Social Order . . 
The Problem of World Order 


XIV.) SOCIAL, PROGRESS}... Sa het ake reac ame 


The Problem of Social le ey Sere 

The Nature of Social Progress . A 
The Anthropo-Geographical Theory of Progress . 
The Biological or Racial Theory of Progress . 
The Economic Theory of Progress : 
Psychological Theories of Progress . . . 
Education as the Method of Social Progress 

The Sociological Theory of Progress . .. . 


XV. THe NATurRE oF SOCIETY 


The Contract Theory of ‘Society’ . 9.) “yagi 
Criticism . mts! 

The Organismic Theary dt Bercicty 
Criticism )3 

The Cultural or Psychological Theat af Society 


The Practical Value of the si tama Conception 


of Society” ae oi. 0h ad 


XVI. HuMANItTy AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 


‘ine: Individual and Soctetwis).. 4.“ scitel 
The Group and Society . . EMT 
The Meaning of the Social Life ae 


INDEX e e e e e e e oo e se e e e s e e e 


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
HUMAN SOCIETY 





THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
HUMAN SOCIETY 


CHAP TER«t 
THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 


The Nature of Social Science 


Science is merely a name for accurate, tested and syste- 
matized knowledge. In its broadest sense it is “but the most 
accurate information available about the world in which we 
live and the nature of ourselves and our fellow men.” + In 
other words, science is the term we use for the accurate 
knowledge which we secure when we carefully observe, and 
investigate, and then classify and interpret the results. It is 
man’s effort to interpret and understand his world through 
tested knowledge. Science springs, therefore, from the de- 
sire to understand what happens in our experience. It is 
the result of applying human reason to the “phenomena of 
experience,” by which we mean anything that happens. 

The starting point of science is common sense.2 Man 
finds himself in a world which must be understood in order 
to be controlled. His world of experience is constantly 
changing from moment to moment. In order to adjust him- 
self to these changes he must understand the conditions giv- 
ing rise to them and the manner in which they occur. This 
he endeavors to do by observing or discovering the conditions 

1 Robinson, The Mind in the Making, p. 208 


2 Pearson, The Grammar of Science, 3d edition, Chaps. I, II. 
I 


2 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


which seem to be connected with the appearance of phenom- 
ena; for this knowledge enables him to explain them. Any 
phenomenon is explained scientifically when all the conditions 
essential to its appearance are fully described. Therefore, 
the effort of science is to uriderstand the mechanism through 
which phenomena take place; that is, all occurrences. 
Hence, science is the method of solving the more complex 
problems of experience which man has worked out through 
his intelligence.® ) 

Now it has been supposed by some that science is limited 
to the description and explanation of the phenomena of the 
physical universe. Some have even gone so far as to deny 
the possibility of sciences of mental and social phenomena. 
But if science be the product of reason and common sense 
applied to the phenomena of experience, then it would seem 
that science has as much right to observe, investigate, and 
correlate mental and social phenomena as any other sort. 
Indeed, in our world there is even more need to understand 
these phenomena than those of physical nature if we wish 
to gain control over life. Science starts with the common- 
sense view of the world, and common sense does not find 
mental and social phenomena less real than physical phe- 
nomena. Science does not, indeed, question the reality of 
the phenomena which it investigates. Its effort, as we have 
just said, is to understand them, and if possible to furnish 
man with means of controlling them. 

Now the effort of the social sciences, no less than of other 
sciences, is to understand the mechanism or technique of the 
phenomena with which they deal, which is, in their case, 
the processes of the social life. They endeavor, like all 
sciences, to explain phenomena by describing fully all con- 
ditions essential to their occurrence. In this broad sense 
there is no difference in the spirit and method of the 


8 Compare Lindeman, Social Discovery, Chap. I; also Thomson, An 
Introduction to Science, pp. 1-56. 


THE STUDY: OF: THE’GROUP 3 


so-called natural sciences and of the social sciences. 
‘The social sciences are as much true sciences as the physical 
sciences; but on account of the complexity of the phenomena 
with which they deal, they have more difficulty than have the 
physical sciences in becoming bodies of accurate, tested 
knowledge, such as every science aspires to be. 

The physical sciences have become bodies of accurate, 
tested knowledge largely through the method of experi- 
mentation, which is the method of observing phenomena 
under such controlled conditions that they can usually be 
accurately compared and measured. While this method 
is not absolutely closed to the social sciences, it seems to 
have such limited possibilities in the field of social phenomena 
that the scientific student of social life is forced to depend 
largely upon other methods, such as the observation, com- 
parison, and correlation of social phenomena.* Measurement 
is, however, not essential to science, and it is a mistake to 
think of science as merely or chiefly a “quantitative state- 
ment of objective facts.” ® The most important statements 
of modern science, for example, those connected with the 
theory of evolution, are not quantitative statements, but state- 
ments of developmental relations; and to limit science to 
quantitative formulations is unwarranted by either the his- 
tory or the nature of science. Quantitative measurements 
are desirable in every science for the sake of exactness; but 
the social sciences for a long time will probably have to con- 
tent themselves with the critical qualitative analysis, compari- 
son, and correlation of social phenomena. While they may 
not become exact quantitative statements, the social sciences 
may become bodies of critically established, and, therefore, of 





4Compare Giddings, The Scientific Study of Human Society, 
p. 55f. Social experimentation is, of course, limited by many factors, 
such as sentiment and the shortness of individual lives. 

5 Even the most scientific “case studies” of small groups, such as 
families, for example, may show but little quantitative analysis. 


4 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


trustworthy, knowledge. In the broad field of the social 
sciences sociology is usually recognized as the most general 
of the sciences of social phenomena. Starting with a com- 
mon-sense view of the world, sociology and the other social 
sciences seek to show how certain conditions or forces make 
that part of our experience which we call “social” what it is 
from moment to moment. They aim to make human society 
and its changes intelligible. 


Social © or Group Life 


Living in groups is not peculiar to man, but characterizes 
many plants and animals as well. Nor is living in groups in 
itself “social life.’ A clump of grasses, a forest of trees, a 
colony of bacteria, or a group of protozoa may show inter- 
dependence” in the life activities of their separate units; but 
we do not usually call such groups “societies,” because, so 
far as we know, no conscious relations or “comradeship” are 
involved in such forms of collective life. The relations be- 
tween their units seem to be purely physical or physiological. 
Such groups, it is true, show the first mark of social life in 
that they share a common life; but since they are lacking 
in conscious relations they cannot be regarded as having 
social life. 

As soon as mentality appears in the world of animal life 





6 There seems to be little reason for coining a new technical 
word, such as “societal,” meaning of, or pertaining to, soctety, or 
a social group. We shall use “social” in the same sense that the 
word “societal” is generally employed by those who prefer that 
technical term. This is in accord with the best scientific usage. 

7 To emphasize the idea of reciprocity the words “interdependence,” 
“interstimulation,’ “intercommunication,” etc., have been preferred 
to “dependence,” “stimulation,” “communication,” in most places in 
the text. “Stimulation,” for example, might not imply a reciprocal 
process. 

8 Because some botanists have found it convenient to call certain 
plant colonies “societies” does not, of course, prove that they use 
the word rightly. Such use is metaphorical from the critical scientific 
standpoint. 


THE STUDY (OF ‘THE GROUP 5 


another sort of interdependence is possible. This new inter- 
dependence takes the form of mental interaction or, as we 
might more accurately say, of mental interstimulation and 
response.? In other words, more or less conscious relations 
arise among the members of animal groups, and the group 
activities begin to be carried on by means of more or less 
conscious interactions or mutual adjustments between the 
members of sucha group. In this case, the association of the 
members of a group is guided and controlled by conscious 
or mental processes, giving rise to what we may properly 
call collective or group behavior, and so to “social life.” 
Not simply collective life, but conscious collective life is 
necessary for true society. ; 

When we analyze this “collective behavior” we find that 
it is made up of various forms of interstimulation and 
response, which range all the way from the level of almost 
unconscious, instinctive reactions, controlled wholly by 
heredity, to the level of rational adjustments, controlled (in 
human beings) by the highest conscious intelligence. Now 
this collective behavior which is intermediated and controlled 
by more or less conscious processes is also known as “social 
behavior.”7° We might call “social behavior,’ therefore, 
that which results from the more or less conscious adjust- 
ments of individuals to one another and “social life” the life 
which results from the mental interstimulation and response 





® That is, interstimulation and response accompanied by or giving 
rise to conscious processes. In this book, when subjective terms, 
like “mind,” “feelings,” “ideas,” “values,” etc., are used, it must 
be understood that the correlated neural processes are included in 
those terms. 

10 Some preliminary analysis and definition of concepts or terms 
is the first step in scientific method. While it is true that definition 
in the final sense is the last stage of science, as is often said, it 
is also true that in science we must know from the beginning what 
we are talking about. Tentative definition of concepts, therefore, 
is a necessary preliminary in all scientific work, and particularly _ 
in the reasoned sciences. 


6 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of the members of the group. In the lower forms of 
animal life it begins with very simple forms of mental inter- 
stimulation and response, such as imitation and sympathy, 
but in man it rises to the level of intelligent communication. 
It is the process of communication between individuals which 
especially makes possible the organized and definite forms 
of collective behavior which we see in human groups. In 
human groups this intercommunication is the chief form of 
mental interstimulation and response, and so it is the main 
form of mental interaction to concern us in our study. 

We are now prepared to see that the two marks of “social 
life” are (1) coOperation, in the sense of the carrying on 
of certain common activities by a group, and (2) mental 
interaction, in the sense of conscious interstimulation and 
response.?? The latter, however, is only the means or method 
of carrying on common or group activities. Social life is 
evidently that form of collective life which is carried on by 
mental interaction, that is to say, on a conscious plane. This 
is because a social group is made up of relatively independent 
individuals, and hence their only possible means of reciprocal 
adjustment is through more or less conscious interstimulation 
and response. It follows, therefore, that the psychology of 
“social life’ cannot be in terms of “subjective” mental 
processes within the individual, but must be in terms of the 
whole process of interstimulation and response between indi- 
viduals.** The psychology of collective human behavior must 


11 Compare Bogardus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, p. 103f. 

12 Some sociologists and psychologists, who would make sociology 
begin with human culture and human institutions, would’ add a 
third mark of the social, namely, acquired uniformity of reaction 
in a group, such as common habits, usages, customs, aims, etc. This 
would make the social synonymous with the cultural. Comment will 
be found later in the text. 

13 The “subjective” or mental processes, as Dr. L. L. Thurstone 
(in his book The Nature of Intelligence) and others have pointed 
out, represent incomplete or unfinished behavior; but as they are 
determinative of individual or personal attitudes, they are important 


Tee STUDY OR THE, GROUP 7. 


accordingly form a very considerable part of sociology, which 
treats of social phenomena in general; for only in this way 
can we secure scientific analysis of the method by which the 
common life or activities of human groups is carried on. 

From what has been said we may define society as collective 
or group life carried on by means of conscious relations 
between tts members or, concretely, as any group of indi- 
viduals who carry on common activities or a common life by 
means of mental interstimulation and response. Conscious 
relations there may be without social life, but there is no 
social life without conscious relations or mental interaction. 
It is, therefore, the psychic ** element which constitutes the 
“social”; or to put it in other words, it is intermental life 
in a group of individuals which makes possible “social life.” 
It would be a mistake, however, to think that the whole of the 
social life is to be found in its psychic or mental elements; 
for, on the contrary, the interdependence which we find in a 
social group is an interdependence of the whole life-process. 
It includes objective physical activities as well as the psychic 
processes which guide and control these activities. While 
there is no excuse for the one-sided conclusion that inter- 
mental life is the whole of social life or that the psychology 
of collective behavior is the whole of sociology, yet we must 
recognize that intermental stimulation and response is what 
makes possible social group life. It is its method—its 
essential and constitutive element. 

This is true of all sorts of social groups, whether they 
are national groups, cultural groups, community groups, 
family groups, or any social groups of animals or men. It 
is the mental element in the life of the group which makes 
‘it a society and which makes us call it a “society”; but this 





‘not only for individual but also for group behavior, for the so- 
ciologist as well as for the psychologist. 

14The word “psychic,” or “psychical,” is used in the scientific 
sense as synonymous with mental. 


8 PSYCHOLOGY -OFMHUMA NYSOCIETY 


mental element is functional to the collective life. It is the 
instrument through which the social life of the group is 
carried on. It is not social life itself (for that is the whole 
collective life of the group), but it marks a new kind, a new 
level, of collective life—the ‘‘social.”’ The external mark of 
the “social” is the interdependence in activity or behavior of a 
group of relatively independent individuals.1* But some 
degree of reciprocal consciousness on the part of the indi- 
viduals of a group is the only possible method of establishing 
and maintaining coordinated activities. The most ordinary 
observation establishes the fact that the members of such a 
group are stimulated by the presence of other individuals 
of the group. 

Some consciousness of other individuals, in other words, 
is necessary to make any social adjustment. Indeed, we 
cannot think of society in any intelligible sense in which we 
use the term without reference to conscious elements. When 
we study all the elements which go to make up human social 
life, moreover, we find them to be either conscious processes 
or closely associated with conscious processes. Any situa- 
tion in the social life of humanity will be found upon 
scientific analysis to consist of conscious activities, mental 
attitudes, feelings, beliefs, interests, desires, values, and 
standards on the part of individuals. Nor is there any social 
situation left when these psychic elements are entirely taken 
away. Usages, customs, traditions, institutions, even civiliza- 
tion itself, all alike resolve themselves into elements which 
are essentially psychic. They are social psychic phenomena. 
We cannot, indeed, think of human institutions or of human 
history as existing apart from conscious agents. The social 


15 Compare Park and Burgess’s statement (in Introduction to the 
Science of Sociology (second edition), p. 42): “The thing that dis- 
tinguishes a mere collection of individuals from a society is not like- 
mindedness, but corporate action.” See Chap. V of this book for 
elaboration. 


HE STUDY OF NTHE"GROUP 9 


is evidently a special development of the mental or psychic. 
It is mental interdependence, the contact and overlapping of 
our inner selves, which makes the “‘social.” All this merely 
emphasizes again the point that it is the psychic element 
which constitutes the social, and that the criterion of the 
social is mental interdependence. The ‘social process is a 
psychological phenomenon, consequently a _ psychological 
explanation is necessary to understand social processes or 
group behavior.?® 


Evolutionary Phases of Social Life 


Social life begins with animal association. Culture is not 
necessary for social group life. Many animals besides man, 
as we have already said, live in groups and adjust themselves 
to one another through some sort of consciousness of the 
presence of other individuals in their group. Even instinc- 
tive activities frequently require some degree of reciprocal 
consciousness on the part of individuals for their functioning. 
Thus collective behavior, or social life, begins far down in 
the reaches of animal life. The life of the social insects, 
such as the ants and the bees, sufficiently illustrates this phase 
of social life.4* But not until social life, or collective behavior, 
depends upon acquired uniformities of action, rather than 
upon inborn or hereditary uniformities of instinct, is there 
opportunity for the domination of such behavior by con- 
scious processes and intelligent purposes. 

Even before the human stage is reached we find uniformi- 
ties of action apparently brought about in social groups of 
animals by such psychic processes as suggestion, imitation, 
and sympathy. Animal groups, however, are undoubtedly 





16 Compare Lindeman, Social Discovery, pp. 112-119; also Park 
and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Chap. III. 

17 See Espinas, Des Sociétés animales; also, Wheeler, Ants, Their 
Structure, Development, Behavior; and Park and Burgess, op. cit, 
pp. 161-172; and finally Alverdes, Tiersoziologie, Band I. 


10 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


dominated by the hereditary or instinctive element. Human 
society, on the other hand, is characterized from its earliest 
beginnings by acquired uniformities due to habit.18 A habit 
which is acquired by one individual of the group may be 
communicated to and learned by other members of the group 
and thus become the common property of all. Mental inter- 
stimulation and response, especially in the form of intercom- 
munication, thus assumes new importance. Hence a new 
type of social life is possible—one built upon the basis of 
learning and of acquired habit;’® and the acquirements of 
one individual may become acquirements of all through 
mental interstimulation and response. Accordingly, the web 
of intercommunication through furnishing the social stimula- 
tion necessary for the transmission of habit takes the place in 
human groups of instinct in bringing about relative uniformity 
of action on the part of all members of the group. This ex- 
plains why the social life of man shows many complex phases 
of behavior not shown by animal groups, such as industry, art, 
government, education, science, morality, and religion. All 
of these taken collectively form what the anthropologist and 
the sociologist term “culture” (which is the scientific term 
for civilization in the broadest sense), and rest upon acquired 
group habits and go back to man’s superior means of social 
communication through articulate speech, as well as to his 
superior power of adaptation through abstract thought. They 
distinguish human groups from animal groups. 

Culture or civilization is, then, not inborn but acquired by 
every individual in human groups; but this culture of the 
group dominates the behavior of the human individual and 
so the behavior of human groups. Human social life is 


18 “Habit” is used in this-book in the broad sense, including not 
only all acquired modes of action, but also all acquired modes of 
thought and feeling which persist. See Chap. III. 

19 The expression “acquired habit” is, of course, strictly speaking, 
tautologous since all habits are acquired; it is, however, retained 
at various places in the book for the sake of clearness. 


THE STUDY’ OF ' THE’ GROUP II 


thus dominated by “culture”; ?° and culture is a matter of 
habits of thought and action acquired by interaction with 
other members of one’s group. This interaction is, however, 
almost wholly on the psychic plane, and is mediated by sug- 
gestion, imitation, and the more definite forms of communi- 
cation, such as language. Human sociology becomes very 
distinct, therefore, from the psychology of the collective 
behavior of animal groups. Jt ts culture and habit, not 
instinct, which must be the main concern of the sociologist, 
or of any one who offers a psychological interpretation of 
collective human behavior; for it is the development of cul- 
ture which distinguishes the social life of man from the 
social life of the brutes. In the human sense, as Professors 
Park and Burgess say,”! society almost “may be defined 
as the social heritage of habit and sentiment, folkways and 
mores, technique and culture, all of which are incident or 
necessary to collective human behavior.”’ And all of which, 
we may add, are included in what the anthropologist calls 
“culture,” which is but a synonym for our social heritage. 
By this we do not mean to say that the element of instinct 

and other hereditary and biological elements should not be 
taken into account in a psychological interpretation of human 
society. As we shall see, these elements do obtrude them- 
selves upon human social behavior; but they are not the 
dominant elements in the social process, and should not 
occupy the center of the sociological stage. 

Thus approaching social life from the standpoint of evolu- 


20 Professor C. M. Case, however, in his Outline of Introductory 
Sociology (pp. Xvii, Xvili, xxix-xxxiv) goes too far in following 
Professor A. L. Kroeber in the identification of the cultural and 
the social. If this is done, not only is the ground cut from beneath 
the lower human and subhuman sociology, as Professor Ross says 
(Foundations of Sociology, p. 89), but also from the study of the 
non-cultural and non-institutional aspects of human group life—a 
most important part of human sociology. See p. 5 of my Sociology 
in Its Psychological Aspects; also Chap. II of this book. 

21 Introduction to Science of Sociology, p. 161. 


2 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIEEY 


tion we discover again that it is essentially psychic in its nature 
and method; ?? indeed, increasingly so as we ascend in the 
scale of human social development. A purely objective 
sociology, that is a sociology wholly in terms of physical 
processes, if it were possible, would be meaningless to us, 
because human culture is a matter of acquired habits, ideas, 
and values—it is a psychic phenomenon. Scientific descrip- 
tion of human social life, accordingly, must be largely in 
terms of conscious processes if it is to be intelligible to us. 
The psychological part of sociology, therefore, becomes its 
main part. It is not only the larger part, but it is the more 
fruitful part, if our aim in studying social life is to learn 
how to control it; for it is conscious processes which are 
especially subject to control. This is not saying, however, 
that there is not a physical and mechanical element in human 
society as well as a psychic element. Sociology is a broader 
subject than the psychology of collective behavior, even 
though the latter may be the most immediately practicable 
part of sociology. 


Forms of Group Life 


The forms and varieties of human groups are multitudi- 
nous. All social groups, however, are derived from the type 
of group which we may call a “community.” We may 
define a community as any group which carries on all phases 
of a common life. It is “a definite area of common life.” 
Hence individuals are born into communities. They are 
natural, genetic groups, capable of reproducing themselves, 

22“An analysis of culture, if fully carried out,’ says Professor 
Goldenweiser, “leads back to the individual psyche.” 

23 Compare Maclver, Community, A Sociological Study, Chap. 
II. This book follows Maclver, but usage is not yet uniform 
among sociologists. See Park and Burgess, op. cit., p. 163. Hobhouse 
(Social Development, Chap. II) makes the mark of a community 
“common rule habitually observed,’ but finds the origin of com- 
munity in “a circle of intermarrying families,” thus recognizing the 
genetic factor in its origin. 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 13 


in ‘contradistinction to the artificial groups which we find 
formed among men for special purposes. In this broad 
sense families, neighborhoods, cities, states, and nations may 
be considered communities; for all of these are areas of 
common life and are formed for the general purpose of 
living together, rather than for any special purpose. Now 
while all social groups are of interest to the sociologist and 
the social psychologist, yet those natural, genetic groups 
which we term communities serve best to illustrate the prob- 
lems of group life, and so of sociology. This is so because 
they show all phases of social life. They are, moreover, 
more stable, less artificial, and less specialized than the groups 
formed for special purposes. Besides, the simplest com- 
munities, such as the family and the neighborhood, are 
characterized by face-to-face association, and so illustrate 
most clearly the psychology of individual interaction and of 
group behavior. Finally, these simplest communities are 
primitive and “primary” chronologically as well as psycho- 
logically.2* The problems of sociology can be much better 
attacked through the study of such groups than through the 
study of society at large or association in general. 

Social groups, then, their form, organization, inter- 
relations, changes,.and behavior are what we shall attempt 
to study.”® Society at large is made up of these. As the 
authors just quoted say in effect;?* “Society, in the most 
inclusive sense of that term, the Great Society, as Graham 
Wallas described it, turns out upon analysis to be a constel- 
lation of other smaller societies. The world community is 
merely the Great Society viewed from the standpoint of 
the territorial distribution of its members. From the point 





24 Cooley, Social Organisation, Chap. III. 

25 Bodenhafer, ‘““The Comparative Role of the Group Concept in 
Ward’s Dynamic Sociology and Contemporary American Sociology.” 
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXVI. 

26 Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
p. 164. 


14 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of view of territorial distribution the world community is 
composed of nations, colonies, spheres of influence, cities, 
towns, local communities, neighborhoods, and _ families. 
These represent in a rough way the subject matter of 
sociological science. Their organization, interrelation, con- 
stituent elements, and the characteristic changes (social 
processes) which take place in them are the phenomena of 
sociological science.” 

It will be noted that society in this broad sense is prac- 
tically synonymous with human association, that is, with the 
whole network of interactions and interrelations between 
individuals and groups of individuals. Some sociologists 
think that “association” is the more scientific term.27 At any 
rate, it is the processes of association, of group life, whether 
he studies their biological or their psychological aspects, 
which are the primary objects of the sociologist’s attention. 


Sociology and Social Psychology 


Both sociology and social psychology (as ordinarily under- 
stood) are concerned with the study of social groups, espe- 
cially human groups, their organization, development, and 
behavior. What is the relation between these two studies, if 
both aim to make the collective life of man and its changes 
intelligible ? 

In the broad sense sociology may be defined as the study 
of human relations, or of the interactions of individuals and 
of groups. But inasmuch as these relations are the out- 
come of group life, we may accept as a working definition for 
sociology that it is the science of the origin, development, 
structure, and functioning of social groups. Its point of view, 
its interest, is always in the group or in collective behavior.”® 
On the other hand, the point of view, the interest, of psychol- 


27 Compare Small, General Sociology, pp. 183, 184. 
28 “Sociology is the science of collective behavior.’ ‘—-Lindepran, 
op. cit, Dp. 21. 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP i 


ogy as ordinarily understood is in the individual and his 
behavior.2® The problem of psychology is to explain the 
experience and the behavior of the individual, while the 
problem of sociology is to explain the nature and the behavior 
of the group.®° As soon as interest shifts from the individual 
to the group, it shifts from the purely psychological to the 
sociological. 

But what shall we call the consideration of the psychical 
aspects of social groups and of social life generally? This 
has usually been called “social psychology,” but it is evi- 
dently a part of sociology if the distinction between 
psychology and sociology, which has just been pointed out, is 
a valid one. Even if it is acknowledged, however, that the 
study of group life is sociology it would seem appropriate to 
call that part of the study which concerns itself with group 
behavior and with the mental interactions of individuals 
“social psychology” or “the psychology of society.” If the 
study of collective behavior may not be appropriately called 
the psychology of society, it may at least be called “‘psycho- 
logical sociology,” and this is what we shall concern ourselves 
_with.** If, of course, it is an error to explain society in 
psychological terms at all, as some social thinkers have con- 


29 Allport (Social Psychology, p. 4) goes so far as to say: 
“Psychology in all its branches is a science of the individual.” 

80 Allport (Social Psychology, p. 10) rightly says: “The study 
of groups is the province of the special science of sociology. While 
the social psychologist studies the individual in the group, the so- 
ciologist deals with the group as a whole.” 

81 Professor Giddings (The Scientific Study of Human Society, 
p. 11) has suggested “societal psychology,” limiting “social psy- 
chology” to the study of the individual’s social béhavior (see foot- 
note on p. 4). He says: “Social psychology occupies itself chiefly 
with the behavioristic interactions of intimates, and the development 
thereby of the social attitudes and habits of soci... . Societal 
psychology, or sociology, in distinction, while depending on social 
psychology at every step, occupies itself in the main with the genesis 
and the carrying on and the characteristic achievements of that 
comprehensive group which the Latins called societas.” 


16 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tended, then there can remain only a physics or a biology of 
society, and the attempt at a psychological interpretation of 
group life is a mistake, due probably to a false metaphysics, 
and not within the limits of science. Such a view, however, 
is absurd, both from the standpoint of science and of common 
sense. ‘The main development, both of scientific sociology 
and of scientific psychology, has held to the view that a 
psychological interpretation of social life is a part, and a 
very necessary and important part, of any general science 
of society, or of sociology. We shall regard our subject, 
accordingly, as a part of sociology *? and as the study of the 
psychic processes involved in the origin, development, struc- 
ture, and functioning of group life.** 

It must be admitted, however, if the study of collective 
behavior is superficial and unorganized it may fall short of 
sociological science. After all, sociology, like all other 
sciences, is defined by its problems, and if a psychological 
study of group behavior is not made with reference to the 
explanation of the objective or external forms and changes 
of social life, it can hardly be said to be truly sociological ; 
for the aim of the sociologist, as we have pointed out, is to 
reach a general and consistent theory of the objective social 





82 Compare Giddings’ statement (Studies in the Theory of Human 
Society, p. 252): “Pluralistic behavior is the subject matter of the 
psychology of society, otherwise called sociology.” 

33 Professor W. I. Thomas (The Polish Peasant, Vol. I) has 
championed the view that social psychology is the general science 
of the subjective side of society, while sociology, economics, political 
science, etc., are sciences of the objective side of society. This 
view can scarcely be regarded as tenable, since economics, political 
science, as well as sociology, etc., have their subjective or psychologi- 
cal sides. All the social sciences have both subjective and objective 
aspects. | Moreover, an objective, behavioristic social psychology 
would, even according to this view, blend with objective social science. 
Professor Thomas was much more logical when, in an earlier paper 
(American Journal of Sociology, Vol. X, pp. 445-455) he claimed 
that social psychology was a vague term covering both parts of 
individual psychology and parts of sociology. 


Hebe hw Y: ORNTEHE GROUP 17 


life. It must also be admitted that social psychology as a 
study may cover the social motives and social behavior of the 
individual; that is, how the behavior of the individual is 
affected by his social contacts. In this case, its center of 
interest.is the individual and his behavior, and such social 
psychology remains ‘purely psychological.** It will be of 
value to the sociologist because it will aid him in understand- 
ing the forms and the changes of group life; but it is not 
sociology. Apparently then, social psychology, as commonly 
used, is a vague term which covers parts both of the 
psychology of the individual and of sociology. It is only with 
the latter, or with the psychology of society, or the social 
psychic, that we shall concern ourselves, though, of course, 
we shall not be able wholly to avoid reference to the motives 
and behavior of individuals as members of groups. Our 
purpose, however, is to understand group life and group 
behavior, rather than individual life and individual behavior, 
though these are closely correlated facts. 

That there is group life and group behavior as certainly 
as there is individual life and individual behavior is attested 
in our experience by such facts as customs, institutions, group 
organization, and group changes. To think, however, that 
these can be understood apart from the behavior and experi- 
ence of individuals is also absurd.*®° The group and the 
individual, social life and the individual life, are correlatives, 


84 This is the view of social psychology taken by Professor F. H. 
Allport in his Social Psychology. He says (p. 12): “Social psychol- 
ogy is the study of the social behavior and the social consciousness 
of the individual.” He rightly holds that social psychology in this 
sense is one of the foundation sciences of sociology. We may add 
that in accordance with this view the study of the person, as such, 
belongs to psychology rather than to sociology. 

85 As Lindeman says (Social Discovery, p. 128): “An accurate 
understanding of the behavior-pattern of each individual in the group 
would undoubtedly assist in arriving at conclusions regarding the 
group, but the sum total of these individual behavior-patterns would 
not constitute the behavior-pattern of the group.” 


18 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


and neither can be understood apart from the other. Hence 
the need of a study of group life and of collective behavior, 
as well as of human nature and individual behavior, of the 
psychology of society as well as a psychology of the indi- 
vidual. Like the individual and the social life, like the 
individual human mind and civilization, so psychology and 
sociology are inextricably linked and overlap. It is hardly 
profitable to inquire too narrowly where one leaves off and 
the other begins; but it is profitable to study both the 
individual and the collective aspects of life and behavior, 
both human nature and human society. 


The Problems of Sociology 


The sociologist has, as we have seen, certain definite 
problems which define for him his science. These problems 
may be stated in different ways, but they always reduce 
themselves to problems of the origin, development, structure, 
and functioning of social groups. They are the more general 
and fundamental problems of the social life. To unravel 
these problems, however, the sociologist has to study primarily 
the associational processes, or interactions of individuals; 
for these lie back of all forms and changes of the social life. 
Now when these associational processes are studied as we 
find them in actual experience, we find that they are greatly 
modified, if not controlled, by “psychic processes,” by which 
we mean mental processes or processes more or less associated 
with conscious states. The human social process is dominated 
by these “psychic factors.” ** The place of psychic processes 
in the problems of collective behavior, or of social life, there- 
fore, needs to be investigated by the sociologist. He must 
learn to understand the psychology of human society. For 
instance, he must study the role of instinct and acquired 


86 For this reason Hobhouse says (Social Development, p. 11): 
“Essentially the subject matter of sociology is the interaction of 
individual minds.” 


DHE STUDY OF THE GROUP 19 


habit, of emotion and desire, of love and hatred, of sugges- 
tion and imitation, of feeling and intelligence in the social 
life. In such a study the problems of social organization and 
evolution, or the practical problems of social order and social 
progress, should always be in the background of his mind. 
Instinct, for example, may be studied in its bearings both 
upon the origin of social groups and upon their organization 
and behavior. Again, habit may be studied in its relation to 
the organization, the persistent behavior, and the changes 
of social groups. Again, feeling and intelligence may be 
studied to see their bearing upon social order or upon both 
gradual and abrupt social changes. These are but a few 
examples of the working of psychic processes in the social 
life. All the interactions of individuals, all the forms of 
mental interstimulation and response among men should be 
studied by the psychological sociologist if he wishes to 
understand the real happenings of the social world. All 
this study, however, will be far from complete and profitable 
unless it brings its results together as a part of a general 
theory of social life. 

Evidently some general classification of the fundamental 
problems of the social life is needed if we are to see the 
relation of these special studies to the whole. The tradi- 
tional division of the problems of sociology is a division into 
static and dynamic problems. The static problems are those 
of hypothetically stationary society ; that is, one in which the 
types of social interaction, and so the forms of social life, 
do not change. They are the problems which we get when 
we take a cross-section, photographic view of social life. 
In brief, they are problems of social organization and of 
social functioning considered as unchanging. 

The dynamic problems, on the other hand, are those of 
changes in the type of social organization and activity. They 
cover the whole field of social evolution from the origin of 
the earliest social groups to the latest changes in human social 


20 PSYCHOLOGY OF: HUMAN SOGIELY 


life. These dynamic problems are evidently the central prob- 
lems of sociology; for the real social world is a growing, 
changing world. Just as in biology the central problem is 
organic evolution, so in sociology the central problem is 
social evolution. By this we understand a scientific theory of 
social origins and of social change or development of all 
sorts—from the changes in the family life or industry to the 
rise and decline of cultures or civilizations. Sociology to-day 
is mainly dynamic. 

We shall see that the factors involved in these changes 
are the same in the great human groups as in the small 
groups, the same in the minute phenomena of group life and 
in great historical movements. If this were not so, we 
would stand little chance of understanding the larger changes 
and movements of human society on account of their com- 
plexity. But we shall see that if we understand the psy- 
chology of the behavior and changes of small human groups, 
the movements and changes in the larger groups will become 
understandable also. 

Now this classification of the problems of our social life 
is perfectly valid from the standpoint of pure or theoretical 
science. It corresponds, it will be noted, to the chief problems 
indicated in our definition of sociology; for the problems of 
origin and development of social groups are manifestly the 
problems of social evolution; and the problems of the struc- 
ture and functioning of social groups are problems of social 
organization viewed as unchanging. But the practical prob- 
lems of the human social world at the present time suggest 
another classification of the fundamental problems of social 
or group life, which may perhaps be more convenient and 
even clearer. Almost any observer would say that, at the 
present time, the problems of our human world are problems 
of unity and change; and he would probably add that the 
changes which we are forced to deal with in practical human 
affairs are of two types, gradual changes, which may be 


LHE STUDY OP THE’ GROUP te: 


called “growth,” and abrupt, violent changes, which might 
be called “revolutions.” There is also much consideration 
given at the present time to continuity of historic social 
forms. From this point of view the fundamental problems 
of the social life may be classified as those (1) of social 
unity or group integration; (2) of social continuity, or unity 
of group life in time; (3) of gradual social change, or normal 
group development; and (4) of abrupt or revolutionary 
changes in groups.*? 

We shall, accordingly, in this book adopt this classification 
as convenient for our purposes, and discuss our problems 
under heads of the unity of the group and the continuity 
of the group, normal changes in group behavior and abrupt 
or abnormal changes in group behavior. It does not matter 
what human groups we are seeking to understand, whether 
it is the family, the neighborhood or local community, the 
city or the nation, the principles of collective behavior which 
we are about to discuss will apply to any or to all of them. 
For the uniformity of human social or group life in its 
fundamental laws and principles is not less a fact than the 
uniformity of physical nature. This new classification of the 
problems of group life is, of course, not in contradiction with 
the traditional classification. For the problems of group unity 
and of group continuity are evidently problems of social or- 
ganization and functioning ; while the problems of gradual so- 
cial change and of abrupt or revolutionary changes in groups 
are problems of social evolution. Thus the two classifications 
of sociological problems may be readily reconciled. 


Bearing of the Psychology of Society upon Other 
Sciences 
The only satisfactory basis for distinguishing the sciences 
from one another is the distinction between their problems. 
87 Many other classifications of the problems of sociology are 


of course possible. They are readily reconcilable with the classifica- 
tions just noted. 


22 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


The basis of division between the sciences is the problem. 
The different sciences merely represent divisions of labor 
among the workers in the scientific field, and so, frequently 
overlap. There is probably nothing in the social life of 
man which cannot be explained by principles of physics, 
chemistry, geography, biology, and psychology. Neverthe- 
less, these antecedent sciences do not explain the social life 
of man, for the simple reason that that is not their problem. 

The distinction between sociology and psychology, as we 
have seen, is peculiarly difficult to define if we recognize 
the validity of the psychological method of sociology, unless 
we frankly recognize that the distinction between the sciences 
is one of the problems. Psychology, as we have said, studies 
the individual and his behavior, while sociology studies the 
group and its behavior. But we cannot understand the indi- 
vidual apart from his group, any more than we can under- 
stand the group apart from the nature of the individuals 
who compose it. Thus the dependence between sociology 
and psychology is reciprocal. Individual psychology must 
accordingly look to the study of group life for the explana- 
tion of much in individual behavior. It depends as much 
upon the psychology of society as the psychology of society 
depends upon it. 

This fact enables us to see clearly, however, that the 
social sciences are interested primarily in the problems of 
collective life and not primarily in understanding the nature 
and behavior of the individual. Nevertheless, the behavior, 
interaction, and organization of individuals in groups cannot 
be understood apart from the instincts, habits, feelings and 
intelligence of individuals. Consequently, the work of the 
sociologist consists largely in tracing the working of these 
various individual psychic processes in the group life. The 
sociologist is, necessarily, a psychologist if he is an adequate 
scientific student of group behavior.*8 


38 Compare Lindeman’s statement (Social Discovery, p. 32): “It 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 23 


To make individual human nature the basis for the scien- 
tific understanding of collective behavior is, of course, not to 
exclude in any way the fullest recognition of the working of 
biological factors in human social life. The behavior of the 
individual, even if modified and controlled by consciousness, 
is nevertheless rooted in the biological conditions of life. 
Moreover, there is no biological fact of importance, at least 
so far as man is concerned, which has not some effect upon 
human behavior. Hence most biological facts have their 
correlates in man’s mental life. Individuality and originality, 
for example, seem to be largely correlates of the biological 
fact of variation; while instinct is the psychological correlate 
of inherited nervous structure and functioning. These are 
only a few examples of the bearing of biological facts and 
principles upon individual and group behavior. Modern 
psychology bases itself upon biology, and hence the sociologist 
must be alive to all that modern biology can teach him. 

The bearing of the psychology of society upon the theoreti- 
cal portions of. the special social sciences deserves considera- 
tion in detail. The history of these sciences clearly shows 
that throughout their development they have either made or 
borrowed a psychology for their purposes. This is not sur- 
prising, since all of these sciences study human behavior. 
The central problems in most of these sciences are of a 
socio-psychological nature. Let us briefly consider some of 
these sciences to see how true this is, 


TU siory 


History is a concrete, descriptive science of society which, 
as a whole, attempts to record the development of human 
culture or civilization. It shows the connection in a concrete 


becomes increasingly evident that sociology approximates scientific 

proportions in ratio to its use of psychological data and methods.” 
39 Compare Park and Burgess, op. cit., pp. 1-23; Lindeman, op. cit., 

pp. 30-47; also Barnes, The New History and the Social Studies, 


24 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


way between events, institutions, and eras. Sociology, on the 
other hand, seeks to interpret these records and to derive 
from them principles of behavior which will have a universal 
application. The continuity of development in human social 
life is especially the concern of history; but its problems are 
evidently problems in collective human behavior and in the 
development of culture. History, however, limits its descrip- 
tions to a particular group and time, and it studies the life 
of that group in a concrete manner. Sociology describes in 
universal terms, which necessarily are of an abstract nature. 
Thus the history of the United States and Canada are neces- 
sarily distinct; while the psychology and sociology of these 
two groups might coincide. As we have indicated, history 
is concrete while sociology is abstract; yet history is a socio- 
psychological science, for it cannot explain its events or the 
connections between institutions and epochs without resort to 
social and psychological principles. If it attempts to inter- 
pret the facts with which it deals, it must do so in socio- 
psychological terms. On the other hand, the psychology of 
human society could not develop without the use of historical 
facts and of the historical method in ways which we shall 
notice later. 


2. Economics 


The central problem of economics is usually considered to 
be the origin and nature of economic values. The new 
economics quite generally recognizes that economic values are 
social values, and that they cannot be understood apart from 
the psychology of human society.*° Prices, markets, and 
economic organization are as much a part of human behavior 
as is anything else in human society; and these cannot be 
explained on the basis of individual psychology but rather 
only through the interaction of masses of men. Tradition 


40 Compare Edie, Principles of the New Economics, Chap. I; also 
Williams, The Foundations of Social Science, Chaps. XIX, XX. 


EES SLU DY ORT HE GROUP 25 


and custom are as powerful in the economic sphere as in any 
other phase of human social life. Consequently, business 
organization and industrial management are as clearly socio- 
psychological problems as any that we know. Throughout its 
history economics has made large use of individual psychology 
to explain economic phenomena, but often using, we are now 
beginning to see, a scientifically inadequate psychology. The 
new economics, however, quite generally recognizes the insti- 
tutional character of our present economic life and that this 
means that economics as a science must base itself upon a 
scientific social psychology. 


3. Political Science 


The central problem discussed in political science at the 
present time is the problem of sovereignty, or the origin and 
nature of governmental authority. This, again, is evidently 
a problem in the psychology of human society.*? Governmental 
authority, or the sovereignty of the state, is but one aspect 
of the larger problem of social control, which is one of the 
central problems of collective behavior or of sociology. The 
whole process of government is quite evidently a socio- 
psychological problem. Indeed, the problems connected with 
government and law are typical problems in the control of 
group behavior as well as in institutional development. We 
cannot understand, therefore, such concrete problems as the 
functions of government, the nature and functions of law, the 
origin and nature of sovereignty, the origin and meaning of 
the forms of government, and many other similar political 
problems, without an adequate psychology of human society. 


4. Ethics 


The central problem of ethics is the origin and nature of 
moral values and moral obligations. Morality always in- 


41Compare Williams, op. cit., Chaps. I-VIII; also Barnes’ So- 
ciology and Political Theory, Chaps. I-V. 


26 j.PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


volves interpersonal relations, and it is, therefore, a social 
matter. Moral ideals are also social ideals, and their validity 
cannot be judged apart from social conditions. Moral con- 
duct is simply a form of social behavior, and our judgment 
of its value is itself a socio-psychological product, quite as 
much as is economic valuation. If the moral is a phase of 
the social, then an understanding of the social will help us 
better to understand the moral. A moral judgment involves 
a consideration not only of human nature, but also of the 
interactions of individuals and of their consequences. Con- 
sequently the judgment is social as well as moral. To provide 
a basis for rational moral judgment, one must consider the 
social bearing of individual conduct, which necessitates an 
understanding of socio-psychological facts and principles.** 
Accordingly, ethics as the science of moral values must find 
in the psychology of human society its chief scientific basis, 


5. Lhe Science of Education 


The central problem in the science of education is the 
nature and method of the educative process. This process 
is not only psychological, but is also social; it is socio- 
psychological, for it requires a process of interaction between 
individuals and between individuals and institutions.** It is 
the process of transmitting culture in the anthropological 
sense in which we have defined that term. Hence the educa- 
tive process is peculiarly characteristic of human society and 
is a peculiarly important phase of the social process. The 
attempt to understand, control, and develop the educative 
process without a clear understanding of the social process is 
bound to fail. A science of education must be built upon 
sociology quite as much, therefore, as upon individual 


42 See Hayes, Sociology and Ethics, Chap. III; also Hobhouse, 
The Rational Good, Chap. V. 

43 See Dewey, Democracy and Education, Chap I; also Snedden, 
Educational Sociology, Part III. 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 27 


psychology. It is not, however, the biological side of 
sociology, but rather the side which concerns itself with habit, 
intelligence, and culture which is of a special concern to the 
educationist. That is, the psychology of our social life is 
the key to the understanding and development of the educa- 
tive process. 


6. The Applied Social Sciences 


Strictly speaking, the science of education is one of the 
applied social sciences. But there are many other sciences 
concerned with social practice. Applied sciences, or those 
connected with practical arts, are always complex in their 
relation to the pure or theoretical sciences. That is, they 
are based not upon one theoretical science, but upon many. 
This may be illustrated by the science of social politics. 
Manifestly, such a science must be based, not only upon 
political science, but upon economics, biology, psychology, 
and sociology. The psychology of the social life would, 
however, have an immediate bearing upon all the problems 
of social legislation and administration. If political and 
social practices are based upon wrong ideas of human nature 
or upon wrong conceptions of human relations, we must 
expect them to work poorly. This is manifestly one of the 
fundamental things wrong with our present world. Those 
who are in charge of its policies as a rule understand neither 
human nature nor the laws of human living together. 

All social work and social practice, if it is to be successful, 
however, must rest upon a scientific understanding of these 
things. Scientific social work must accordingly look for 
guidance as much to social psychology and sociology as to 
economics and biology.** Social psychology can show the 
social worker the way in which we expect the individual to 

44Compare Burgess, “The Interdependence of Sociology and So- 


cial Work” in The Journal of Social Forces, May, 1923, pp. 366- 
370; also Ford, Social Problems and Social Policy, pp. 1-7- 


28 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


behave in a given social situation, and it can also show the 
way in which the attitudes and policies of communities, as 
well as of individuals, may be changed. Most important of 
all, it can be of great assistance to the welfare worker in 
the small community, not less than to the statesman and the 
social reformer, in formulating rational and progressive social 
policies. It can show how far progress can be brought about 
by changes in the opinions, ideas, and values of individuals, 
and how far through changes in the external physical environ- 
ment; and whether progress had best be sought through the 
gradual modification of existing institutions or through sud- 
den and revolutionary changes. The building of institu- 
tions, the changing of laws and customs, the general recon- 
struction of our civilization, all evidently demand as high 
a degree of scientific knowledge as the building of 
bridges or steamships; and the psychology of group behavior 
constitutes the larger part of the scientific knowledge which 
we need when we attempt the modification of human insti- 
tutions. Had the past had such knowledge some of its 
worst social and political blunders might have been 
avoided. 


The Classification of the Social Sciences 


From this brief discussion it will be evident that there are 
several different orders of science, in the sense in which we 
have defined that word. It is evident, for example, that 
history and sociology are sciences of a different order. 
History belongs to an order of studies which may best be 
called “descriptive,” since it is concrete and does not aim 
at the generalization of laws and principles. Sociology and 
social psychology, on the other hand, are theoretical ; that is, 
they aim at universal generalizations which may be called 
laws or principles. Both history’ and sociology may deal 
conceivably with everything that has occurred in human 
society from the earliest beginnings to now, but history 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 29 


will deal with it concretely while sociology will deal with it 
abstractly. There are other abstract or theoretical sciences, 
however, which deal, not with everything social, but with 
particular phases or aspects of the social. They study but 
one line of facts or but one side of the social life, in order 
to get at its laws and principles. Such are economics and 
political science. When these special studies aim immediately 
at the control of social practice, they are the applied social 
sciences, such as education, social politics, social economics, 
and criminology. Another order of science emerges when 
we consider problems of social validity. Then we strive to 
discover norms and standards by which we may judge 
validity. Such science we may call “normative”; and when 
it concerns social behavior we call it “ethics.” The following 
table *® will help us to see the relations between the different 
social sciences at a glance: 


CLASSIFICATION OF THE SocrAL SCIENCES 


Pure or Theoretical Social 


Descriptive Science Normative Applied Social 

Social Science | ————————_—__—_—_———_—_———_|_ Social Science Science 
General Special 
History: gen-| Sociology: stat-| Economics, po-| Ethics: gen-| Education, phi- 
eral and spe|ic and dynam-} litical science,| eral and spe-|lanthropy, so- 
cial. ic; biological’| jurisprudence, | cial, such as] cial economics, 
and psycholog-| science of reli-| political ethics,| social politics, 

Ethnography: | ical ( social] gion, social an-| etc. home  econom- 
demography psychology). thropology, etc. ics, etc. 
(including 
statistics). 





Scientific Methods of Studying Human Society *° 


It is becoming increasingly evident that what has been 
called the psychological method of studying social problems, 





45 Taken from the author’s Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects, 
Chap. III, where a more elaborate discussion of the relations of 
sociology to other sciences will be found. 

48 Probably the best available recent discussions of this topic are 
- Giddings’ The Scientific Study of Human Society and Lindeman’s 
Social Discovery, Chaps. I-IX. 


30 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


namely, by deductions from individual psychology, or original 
human nature, is inadequate. A too exclusive use of this 
sort of psychological analysis in the social sciences leads to | 
many serious errors; for the human mind, as we know it, and 
hence social behavior, are very largely products of historical 
social conditions. The mind and the conduct of an individual, 
in other words, are largely products of the social tradition 
or culture into which the individual is born. The psychology 
of the individual’s social behavior becomes dependent, there- 
fore, upon an understanding of the historical social environ- 
ment in which the individual lives.47 To study human 
institutions exclusively from the standpoint of the mechanism 
of the individual mind is, accordingly, a grievous blunder. 
Group behavior especially is far more a historical and cultural 
product than a product of original human nature. Much 
more than deduction from individual psychology is, therefore, 
involved in the psychology of human society. It would be 
unreasonable to suppose that such complex phenomena could 
be understood through the work in psychological and biojogi- 
cal laboratories, though this work may be of great value 
toward such an understanding. The exact place of deduc- 
tions from individual psychology and biology in the scientific 
study of human society will be seen later. 

All modern science is essentially inductive in spirit; that 
is, it proceeds from facts to theory rather than from theory 
to facts—from particulars to universals rather than from 
universals to particulars, This does not preclude all use of 
deductions from biological and psychological laws and princi- 
ples in the scientific study of society; for such laws and 
principles have been built up from the inductive study of 
facts. It does indicate, however, that the scientific student 
of human society must study social facts, if he is to proceed 
according to a sound method. Where, then, shall he get his 


47 Compare Robinson, The Mind in the Making, Chap. I. 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 31 


facts concerning human society? Manifestly there are three 
sources: first, from anthropology and ethnology, both physical 
and cultural; second, from written history; third, from the 
observation and collection of facts regarding present social 
life. Let us consider briefly what each of these methods 
might contribute to the study of human social behavior. 


1. The Anthropological or Comparative Method 


The facts which anthropology has gathered regarding the 
social life and institutions of uncivilized peoples are of unique 
value in the scientific study of human society because they 
help us to understand the beginnings of customs and insti- 
tutions, and so afford a background for the understanding, 
not only of present social life, but also of the whole course 
of social evolution.*® This mass of data enables us not only 
to compare the institutions of various peoples in different 
stages of social evolution, but also to compare the reactions 
of human nature to various social conditions. There are, 
however, grave dangers in this method when it is applied too 
uncritically to the interpretation of the existing social life of 
civilized peoples ; for uncivilized peoples are not “our contem- 
poraneous ancestors,” as they have often been called, but in 
every case represent more or less divergent social evolution. 
Reasoning from them, therefore, is apt to be reasoning from 
analogy. There can be no question, however, as to the value 
of this method when used with reasonable precautions by 
students who understand human history and human nature. 


2. The Historical Method 


The study of human history enables us to compare social 
processes and social behavior at different points of time, and 
also to see the modifying effect exerted upon it by various 


48 Case’s Outlines of Introductory Sociology, especially Part Three, 
illustrates this method of approach to sociological problems. See 
also Thomas, Source Book for Social Origins. . 


32 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


conditions. Moreover, it spreads before us the process of 
social development during a certain period of time and enables 
us to trace the continuity of factors and forces in social 
development.*® This is especially true when the history of a 
people is full and all-sided, rather than unilateral. Thus, 
reliable written history furnishes the scientific student of 
society a mine of social facts which are perhaps more valuable 
than any other set of facts in the inductive study of human 
society. The great social problems and social movements in 
the civilized world of the present especially cannot be under- 
stood apart from their historic setting. It would be vain, 
for example, to try to get a scientific understanding of such 
a social movement as Christianity without an understanding 
of its historic setting; yet this movement affects all the prob- 
lems of our present civilization, and hence practically all the 
problems of social behavior in which we are vitally interested. 
It may be said that such a reliable, all-sided history remains 
yet to be written. This may be granted; but it would remain 
not less ‘true that scientifically written history, despite the 
short time which it covers, is the great desideratum of the 
scientific study of existing social behavior. It is, of course, 
inadequate by itself and must be supplemented by all the 
other methods which we are discussing. 


3. The Social Survey Method 


A third source of facts for the scientific study of human 
society is to be found in the observation and collection of 
facts regarding existing civilized communities. In a broad 
sense this method covers all statistical and exact methods of 
studying present social life.°° Usually we mean by “social 


49 See Parsons, An Introduction to Modern Social Problems, for a 
textbook in sociology illustrating this method, and Barnes, The Ne ew 
History and the Social Studies, for further discussion. . 

50It, of course, covers in particular the “case study” of small 
groups, especially families, which has been found so valuable in 
social work and which we have reason to believe can be made to 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 33 


surveys,” however, special studies, more or less exact, of local 
communities. It is only when this method is generalized and 
extended over large areas and through considerable lengths 
of time, as in the United States Census and in other collec- 
tions of demographical and statistical material, that it becomes 
of high scientific value. Such observations and collections 
of facts regarding present social behavior and present social 
conditions throw light upon human behavior in domestic, 
political, and industrial relations which we could not get 
from anthropology, psychology, or even written history. 
When our survey of social facts is wide enough it reveals 
great trends in human behavior which laboratory methods 
could scarcely discover.** Moreover, it is a general scientific 
principle that the scientific value of a fact is usually in propor- 
tion to its nearness to the scientific observer. The survey 
- method of studying social facts is, therefore, of great value 
to the scientific student of society. 

The statistical method is simply that phase of this method 
which undertakes to reach exact measurements of social 
movements and tendencies through the tabulation, enumera- 
tion, and comparison of the facts collected by observation. 
The statistical method presents the one method open to us of 
measuring mass movements or social facts upon a wide scale. 
As yet we possess statistics of only very small sections of our 
social life, and the method has still to be enormously developed 
before it is susceptible of application to the more general 
problems of social behavior. Qualitative analysis of these 
problems must be pushed much further before quantitative 
analysis can be applied. For this reason but little use can 
be made of the statistical method at the present time in deal- 


yield valuable results even for general sociology. This method cannot 
be sharply separated from that of the “participant observer” men- 
tioned at the end of this section. 

51 See the author’s paper, “The Present Condition of the Social 
Sciences,” in Science, Nov. 16, 1917; also Taylor, The Social Survey, 
Its History and Methods. 


24 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ing with the more general problems of Oey and social 
psychology. 

We should not overlook the fact that the observation and 
study of the smaller human groups, which involve face-to- 
face association, may furnish a wealth of facts, which in a 
certain sense are of greater sociological value than any 
which the study of larger groups can afford, to the trained 
scientific observer who participates in their life. It is the 
study of these face-to-face groups by participant observers 
which especially gives a valuable insight into the processes of 
social life. This is all the more true when we combine the 
observation of such groups with what we may call “sympa- 
thetic introspection” of the minds of the individuals making 
up different groups; for we then study them from the inside, 
as it were. If sympathetic introspection by participant 
observers is not to introduce fallacies, however, it must be 
checked up by careful observation of objective behavior. 
When coupled with such observation it enables us to study 
the working of many psychic processes in group life, such 
as interest, desire, emotion, belief, and tradition. Sympa- 
thetic introspection, while itself deductive, when used in com- 
bination with observation is an invaluable instrument for 
the psychological understanding of group life. 

Obviously, all of these inductive methods of studying 
collective human behavior will be employed by the intelligent 
scientific student. A complex science such as sociology de- 
mands a composite method which synthesizes all inductive 
methods of research, the anthropological, the historical, the 
statistical, and the survey methods. Even such a composite 
inductive method will, however, prove inadequate for the 
higher generalizations in sociology and social psychology. In 
science in general, while induction may furnish us facts, it is 
deduction which furnishes the hypothesis to interpret the 
facts; so in the social sciences deduction is of use in fur- 
nishing us with working hypotheses. 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP 35 


4. The Method of Deduction from Biology and Psychology 


Biology and psychology may furnish us with general prin- 
ciples for the interpretation of the facts of social behavior. 
It is a general rule in the more complex sciences that princi- 
ples of explanation come from the simpler antecedent 
sciences. The social is not a realm by itself, but is built 
up out of the biological and psychological. Hence, ultimate 
principles of explanation in sociology must be either biologi- 
cal or psychological. It is scarcely ever possible, however, 
to explain human social phenomena simply and wholly 
through some biological fact; and the same is true of psycho- 
logical facts. Biological and psychological facts and princi- 
ples are at work in human society, but we shall untangle their 
workings best if we combine a knowledge of biological and 
psychological principles with an inductive study of collec- 
tive human behavior. In other words, a complex science such 
as sociology demands, for a complete and adequate scien- 
tific method, a synthesis of the results of deduction from the 
principles of antecedent sciences with the facts secured 
through the inductive study of the social life by means of 
anthropology, history, observation, and statistics. All the 
facts from all these sources must be put together in a con- 
structive synthesis before our psychology of human society 
is complete. 


5. Philosophical Assumptions and A Priori Methods 


It should not be necessary to say that metaphysical assump- 
tions and personal biases should be eliminated as far as possi- 
ble, if the problems of the social life are to be studied from 
the scientific point of view.°? To make use of metaphysical 
assumptions in our social study is to reverse the methods of 
science and will probably obscure to our minds some of the 


52 See the author’s Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects, Chap. 
IV, for elaboration. 


36 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


facts which should be taken into account. Scientific reason- 
ing should never be based upon mere assumptions. The 
method of science is not to build itself upon some universal 
assumption, but rather to start with common sense, and to 
build up our generalizations out of all the facts of experience. 
These facts appear to us as both physical and psychical. We 
are unwarranted, therefore, in assuming the doctrine of ma- 
terialism, that only physical facts have reality. The attempt 
to reduce scientific method in the Social sciences to the tracing 
of mechanical causation in social phenomena, thus excluding 
all explanation of our social life in terms of conscious pur- 
poses, is unwarranted by the nature and method of science; 
for the universal validity of such a principle of explanation 
has not been demonstrated. 

In the physical sciences the mechanistic principle of ex- 
planation seems to have demonstrated its sufficiency; but 
the case is very different in the mental and social sciences. 
As scientific students of society we can have no objection 
to carrying the mechanistic or materialistic explanation of 
social phenomena as far as it has been demonstrated to go. 
But if we keep the scientific attitude of mind we will not 
extend its use beyond the limits of demonstration. Nothing 
but confusion and disagreement can result if we do so. The 
economists, for example, would not be justified at the present 
time in disregarding all conscious social processes and in try- 
ing to construe the phenomena of prices and markets in 
terms of mechanical causation. Moreover, if they did so, 
such an explanation by itself would be meaningless; for we 
cannot understand such a fact as economic value, or any other 
value, apart from all consciousness. 

On the other hand, the scientific student of society who 
ignores the physical facts of life and attempts to explain 
everything in terms of psychic processes is equally guilty of 
the use of a wrong method. It may even be said that in the 
past, at least, a too exclusive use of subjective methods in 


THE STUDY OF THE GROUP ay, 


the social sciences has prevented those studies from develop- 
ing into true sciences or reliable bodies of tested knowledge, 
even more than the use of materialistic methods. It may 
be well to repeat that the method of science is the method of 
the open-minded, unbiased investigation of facts. Hence, we 
must put down as inadequate methods both “‘subjectivism,” or 
exclusive attention to internal psychic factors, and “objecti- 
vism,” or exclusive attention to external physical factors.®* 
For example, if we study the cultural stages in the history of 
an institution we shall need to study, not only the physical 
and economic environment, but also habit, suggestion, imita- 
tion, and inventive. ideas. We shall need to pay as much at- 
tention to custom, tradition, communication, group opinion, 
and the rise of new ideas as we do to the physical environ- 
ment. We shall see that we have no way as yet of tracing 
or reducing such psychic factors to the physical. Hence, in 
civilized human society the great mass of social phenomena 
can be understood only in psychological terms. This is true 
not only of economic values, social standards, traditions, and 
religion, but also of customs, institutions, and nearly all 
group behavior, 

_ All this discussion of scientific method, remote as it may 
seem to the student from the practical problems of life, has a 
vital bearing upon these latter. For if social science is to 
guide us in the solution of these practical problems, as an 
eminent British sociologist has said,°* “it must purge itself of 
that mechanistic taint which pollutes its sources of vital 
thought, inhibits spiritual insight, and lowers its efficiency for 





53 A fuller discussion of “objectivism” in the social sciences will 
be found in the Preface of the author’s Introduction to Social Psy- 
chology; also in his article on “Objectivism in Sociology” in the 
American Journal of Sociology for November, 1916, pp. 289-305. 
As Miss Follett says: “Objectivity alone is not reality.” ... “Inter- 
nal conditioning is of equal importance with external conditioning” 

(Creative Experience, pp. 54, 65). 

54 Branford, Science and Sanctity, pp. 246 and 252. 


38 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


social service... . Current industry and business, even 
politics and education, have come to be fatally dominated by 
the mode of thought which characterizes the lower sciences. 
The consequent bias of a hard and forbidding materialism is 
all the more perilous because so largely unconscious.” 
And we may add that a bias in the opposite direction might 
readily lead to a lack of reality in our conceptions and to 
futility in our practical control over social situations. If it 
is true that only a competent and sound scientific method is 
capable of producing competent and sound social knowledge, 
it is also true that only the open-minded love of truth, the un- 
prejudged consideration of all facts, is able to give us a 
sound and competent scientific method for our study of 
human society. 


SeLect REFERENCES 


Gippincs, The Scientific Study of Human Society, Chaps. I-VI. 

Axuport, Social Psychology, Chap. I. 

Batpwin, The Individual and Society, Chap. VII. 

Baz, The Basis of Social Theory, Chap. I. 

BarnEs, The New History and the Social Studies, Chaps. I-X. 

BLACKMAR and GILLiIn, Outlines of Sociology, Chap. II. 

BusHeEE, Principles of Sociology, Chap. I. 

Case, Outlines of Introductory Sociology, Introduction and 
Chap. I. 

DEALEY, Sociology, Its Development and Application, Chap. I. 

Gippincs, The Principles of Sociology, Chaps. I-IV. 

Haves, Introduction to the Study of Sociology, Chaps. I, II. 

LINDEMAN, Social Discovery, Chaps. I-IV. 

Maclver, Community, Bk. I, Chaps. I-III. 

McDouvueca .t, Introduction to Social Psychology, Chap. I. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chap. I. 

Ross, Foundations of Sociology, Chaps. I, II; Social Psychology, 
Chap. I. 

SMALL, General Sociology, Chaps. I-III, XL. 

Tuomas, The Polish Peasant, Vol. I, pp. 1-86. 

WaALtas, The Great Society, Chap. II. 


iio Ul ORT E. GROUP 39 


Warp, Outlines of Sociology, Chaps. I-VI. 

Wiiiiams, Foundations of Social Science, Introduction and 
Chaps. XXII-X XIV. 

Wo Fe, Conservatism, Radicalism, and Scientific Method, Chap. 
IX. 

Worms, La sociologie, sa nature, son contenu, ses attaches. 

For current scientific articles along the lines of sociology 
and social psychology the student should consult such peri- 
odicals as the American Journal of Sociology, the Socto- 
logical Review, La Revue Internationale de Soctologie, the 
Psychological Bulletin, the Psychological Review, the Jour- 
nal of Applied Sociology, the Journal of Social Forces, and 
the publications of the American Sociological Society. 


CHAPTER II 
GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 


Tue social life of man is a part of the world of life in 
general, and even in a psychological interpretation of society 
_ we must have as our background organic evolution. Social or 
group life could not have started unless the factors and forces 
of organic evolution were favorable to its production. In- 
deed, the relations between organic evolution and group life 
are so close that there is danger of their confusion. We 
shall see that at points the two processes overlap. Some 
sociologists have even regarded social evolution as merely 
a phase of organic evolution. Such a view would seem to 
be supported by the fact that living together in groups begins 
very low in the scale of organic evolution, and, as we have 
already seen, characterizes some of the lowest types of life. 
But only that form of group life will concern us which is 
characterized by “comradeship” or social relations between 
relatively independent, conscious individuals. Only the group 
life which is made possible through mental interstimulation 
and response we have agreed to regard as social. What bear- 
ing has organic evolution upon such group life, that is, upon 
social evolution? 


Organic Evolution and Social Evolution 


Science has come to distinguish different phases or stages 
of universal evolution. The first phase is stellar and plane- 
tary evolution, which is dealt with by such sciences as astron- 
omy, geology, and geography. The second stage is organic 
evolution, or the evolution of living organisms. The third 
stage is mental evolution, or the evolution of conscious life. 

40 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 41 











Cosmic | 
evolution 


Organic 
evolution | 


Mental 


evolution 


Social 
evolution 
Cultural 


evolution 


Fic. I. PHASES OF UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION. 


The fourth stage is social evolution, or the evolution of social 
groups. A fifth stage may be distinguished as cultural evo- 
lution, or the evolution of the peculiar and distinctive traits 
of human social groups, which, as we have already said, may 
be summed up in the word “culture.” Cultural evolution by 
some is not regarded as a separate stage, but rather as a 
manifestation of mental and social evolution under human 
conditions, 

If we take the stellar universe to represent the largest proc- 
ess which we know, then we might designate stellar or cosmic 
evolution by a large circle, having within itself the other 
phases of evolution represented by smaller circles, as in 
Figure I. | 

We see that in a large sense organic evolution includes 
social evolution. We see also that the factors or forces of 


42 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


organic evolution must affect social evolution, but that these 
forces are modified by mental evolution, or mental life. The 
lower phases of social evolution, in which there is less de- 
veloped mentality, would accordingly be held more in sub- 
jection to the forces of organic evolution. The higher phases 
of social evolution, especially those which we have designated 
as “cultural evolution,” having to do with the development 
of civilization in human society, would be more remotely af- 
fected by organic evolution. Indeed, we shall see that or- 
ganic evolution affects the cultural traits of human society 
only indirectly. This is because organic evolution has to do 
mainly with the physical and hereditary traits of man, while 
cultural evolution relates rather to his mental and acquired 
traits. The biologist pays but little attention to acquired 
habit, and so far as we know acquired habit has little or no 
influence upon organic evolution, unless indeed, it shall be 
proved that acquired traits are transmissible. The sociolo- 
gist, on the other hand, gives attention chiefly to acquired 
habits, and to the mental processes involved in the readjust- 
ment of habits, since these are the most significant things in 
social life and social evolution. Hence, biological facts and 
laws, such as variation, heredity, and selection, form only 
the beginnings and foundation of social evolution. Never- 
theless, the biological factors which lie back of social life. 
condition and limit social evolution and must be kept in a 
proper perspective; for these biological factors affect both 
the individuals who compose social groups and the organiza- 
tion of the groups themselves. 

It is a general principle that the lower phases of evolution 
not only furnish bases for the development of the higher 
phases, but also that the factors and forces at work in these 
lower phases are at work in the higher phases. Thus geo- 
graphical factors and forces are at work in human society and 
affect the development of culture. Even more do these 
geographical factors play a part in organic evolution. We 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 43 


_ might illustrate this by a diagram in the form of an inverted 
pyramid as in Figure 2.1 






Cultural. 
evolution 


‘Mii S [Social 


GQ” om Mi" S/! O 
G 7] OQ? 


is Mi" 0" 
S iM’! 0” 














evolution! 
Mental 
evolution 
Organic 
evolution 
Géographic or 
cosmic evolution 


Fic, 2, RELATIONS OF HIGHER TO LOWER PHASES OF EVOLUTION, 


G represents geographic factors; O, organic factors; M, mental 
factors; S, social factors; and C, cultural factors. 


Relations of Higher to Lower Phases of Evolution 


From Figure 2 the student will see the complexity of the 
factors or forces which affect human social life, and especially 
human cultural evolution, since all the factors in the lower 
phases of evolution play also through the higher phases. It 
would be possible to trace elaborately the factors in organic 
evolution for example, and show that they are at work in 
human social evolution. This indeed has been done by many 
writers with more or less success. Our interest is rather in 
tracing the factors of mental evolution in social and cultural 
evolution ; but before this can be done profitably we must note 
very briefly how organic evolution has furnished a basis for 
social and cultural evolution. 


Organic Evolution and the Nature of the Individual 
The inborn traits of individuals are the result of organic 

evolution; that is, they are produced by organic variation, 

heredity, and selection. The individual as he is born into 





1 The diagram is left open at the top to indicate that cultural (or 
human social) evolution is just beginning, other phases forming its 
basis. 


44 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


society is thus a product of organic evolution: He may 
be greatly modified later by the particular environment in 
which he lives, and so far as his behavior as a member of a 
group is concerned, this may be perhaps indefinitely modi- 
fied; but it remains true nevertheless that the individual as he 
comes into society by the gate of birth must be regarded 
mainly as a product of biological forces, and so as a product 
of organic evolution.2, Organic variation, heredity, and selec- 
tion give each individual distinct individual and racial traits 
which will affect his reactions to his group and the reactions 
of his group to him throughout his life.* This is easy enough 
to see as regards the gross bodily traits with which the 
individual is born, especially those connected with the facts 
of sex and race. Moreover, if the mental and moral traits 
of the individual are more or less closely bound up with the 
inherited structure of his nervous system, as modern biology 
declares, then mental and moral traits are to that extent 
also subject to the forces of organic evolution. No biologist 
questions that there is an hereditary structure of the nervous 
system which is a result of organic evolution. It would 
seem probable, therefore, that such hereditary structure ex- 
presses itself in the behavior of the individual in certain 
characteristic reactions. These reactions are known in psy- 
chology under such names as appetites, instincts, emotions, 





2 This is, of course, not to deny that culture and social environ- 
ment may often affect the health, etc., of the individual before birth. 

8 For a brief presentation of the modern theory of heredity, that 
it is to be understood as developmental tendencies rather than as hard 
and fast traits, see Professor H. S. Jennings’ article on “Heredity 
and Environment” in The Scientific Monthly for September, 1924, 
pp. 225-238. Says Professor Jennings: “More properly, character- 
istics are not inherited at all; what one inherits is certain 
material that under certain conditions will produce a particular char- 
acteristic; if these conditions are not supplied, some other charac- 
teristic is produced.” As the author accepts this theory, the state- 
ments in the body of the text are to be understood in the light of 
this theory. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 45 


and native impulses. How far such hereditary reactions 
may reasonably be invoked to explain the behavior of civilized 
human beings in their social life is a question which we shall 
discuss later. We need to note here that organic evolution 
has furnished man not only with distinct bodily traits, but 
also with certain original tendencies which run through his 
whole life and behavior in society. 

The original intellectual capacity of man is also a product 
of organic evolution. Modern anthropology teaches us that 
the physical trait which especially distinguishes man from 
other animals is the much greater size of his brain. This 
greater size of the human brain is due to the increase in the 
size of the cortex and of other areas concerned with intellec- 
tual processes. This larger brain and consequent greater 
intellectual capacity of man must be regarded as an organic 
mutation which has been perpetuated by heredity and selec- 
tion. No other organic trait, not even the erect attitude and 
the development of the hands, has had such significance for 
man’s evolution, because upon this trait rests man’s capacity 
for thinking and learning, which is much greater than that of 
any other animal and through which man has produced his 
culture. Thus we see that man’s social and cultural evolution 
is based upon his distinctive organic evolution. The full 
significance of these peculiar traits of man will be discussed 
later. 


Individual Differences * 


Organic evolution has created original differences between 
individuals and these are very significant for the social life. 
Man is probably the most variable of all animal species, and 
human individuality owes its distinctness in part to this fact. 
The complex of inborn traits and of acquired character, which 
we call personality, also owes not a little to these original 


4See Thorndike, Individuality; also Edman, Human Traits and 
Their Social Significance, Chap. IX. 


46 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


individual differences. No two individuals are born alike. 
The differences in their hereditary endowments may range all 
the way from the lowest grade of feeble-mindedness to the 
highest genius. Some individuals are born with favorable 
endowments, others with unfavorable. In part the original 
strength or weakness, physical or mental, of an individual is 
a matter of his heredity; but it is also in part a matter of 
individual variation. Owing, therefore, both to variation and 
to heredity, some individuals are born strong and others are 
born weak in some of the traits which are necessary for suc- 
cess. Hence it follows that there is no such thing as biologi- 
cal equality among individuals at birth. The old belief that 
“all men are born equal” is without foundation if taken in 
a biological sense. It is only in a moral and ideal social sense 
that we can hold this to be true. 

If some individuals are born with superior traits and others 
with inferior traits, this is a very important matter from the 
standpoint of group life. Some individuals will be better 
fitted by natural endowments than others for certain tasks. 
This is especially true in regard to matters of leadership. In 
part, the successful leader of men is born with the qualities 
and endowments which make it possible for him to be a suc- 
cessful leader. This shows the importance of being able 
to discover in advance, if possible, individuals with such 
natural endowments or gifts. Among these original endow- 
ments of the individual the most significant socially is intel- 
lectual capacity. Modern psychology is busy with the 
problem of devising means to measure original intellectual 
capacity and other original behavioristic traits of individuals. 
It has not yet perfected such means of measurement, and 
some doubt seems to attach to all mental measurements thus 
far as to whether they measure original endowments or 
acquirements through experience; but such measurements 
have at least gone far enough to demonstrate that there do 
exist great differences in the original mental endowments of 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 47 


individuals, and that in any scientific plan of social organ- 
ization these original differences between individuals will have 
to be taken into account. 


Differences of Sex ® 


Among the original differences of individuals none are 
more striking in human society than those of sex and race. 
The differences between the sexes, like the differences between 
races, are a matter of such controversy at the present time that 
it is difficult to get a balanced scientific view of the subject. 
We have some scientific men asserting that “men and women 
are physiologically different species,” while others have 
asserted that “few if any psychological differences of sex are 
of biological origin.” The truth would seem to be midway 
between these extreme views. That there are original differ- 
ences between the sexes of a biological nature resulting from 
organic evolution cannot be doubted; for such differences are 
found practically throughout the organic world. Neither can 
it be denied that there are other differences between the sexes 
in human society which are the product of culture or civiliza- 
tion. The problem is to disentangle these two sorts of sex 
differences. Practically all laboratory experiments have 
shown insignificant differences between the sexes in the 
elementary intellectual functions of perception, attention, and 
memory. The original differences between the sexes seem to 
lie not so much in intellectual capacity as in temperament or 
emotional reaction. Throughout the animal world the male 
with his usually greater physical strength shows more of the 
fighting impulse accompanied by more aggressiveness and 
desire for mastery ; the female, on the other hand, shows more 
of the nursing or mothering disposition and exhibits more 
capacity for sympathy and self-sacrifice. In general, however, 
the original differences between the sexes seem to be, not 





5 See Bushee, Principles of Sociology, Chap. XVI. 


48 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


qualitative as popular opinion supposes, but quantitative. They 
consist of slight differences in strength, particularly of certain 
emotional reactions. They seem to favor the harmonious 
adaptation of the sexes to each other in normal social life, 
and hence we may call them complementary differences. They 
are differences which have been developed in an organic 
division of labor between the sexes. To ignore the differences 
in original endowment, whether physical or mental, of the 
two sexes is bound to result in social maladjustments; on 
the other hand, to discover and use these differences properly 
is necessary for a scientific organization of human relation- 
ships. This, however, does not apply to the differences 
between the sexes which have been produced artificially by 
civilization; and the vast mass of observed differences in 
behavior of the two sexes are undoubtedly of this character. 
Some of the cultural differences in the behavior of the 
sexes may be advantageous; others may be disadvantageous. 
We are discussing here only the original differences which 
have a biological basis. 


Differences of Race ® 


The original differences between the various human races 
are equally significant with those of sex for the social life of 
man. -They are even more in controversy at the present time, 
and it is even more difficult to secure an unbiased judgment 
regarding them. There can be no question but that the 
different races of man have been physically specialized to 
different geographic environments. To some extent, there- 
fore, the races are the result of divergent organic evolution. 
Their different physical appearance in itself makes difficult the 
harmonious adjustment of their relations. On the general 





6See Reuter, Population Problems, Chaps. XWVIII-XXI; Case, 
Outlines of Introductory Sociology, Chap. V; Park and Burgess, 
Introduction to Science of Sociology, pp. 89-92; also Miller, Races, 
Nations, and Classes, Chap. XII. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION — 49 


psychological and sociological principle that “likes attract 
and unlikes repel,” or “the consciousness of kind,” as Pro- 
fessor Giddings called it, these physical differences seem 
to impede sympathy and understanding between races. There 
remains, however, the deeper question whether the divergent 
physical evolution of the human races has produced differ- 
ences in their nervous systems, so that their hereditary reac- 
tions are different. This is still an unsettled question. The stu- 
dent should note, however, that physical anthropology has 
demonstrated that the physical differences between faces, 
which often seem so large to us, are, when carefully studied, 
found after all to.be very slight, and to consist merely in cer- 
tain quantitative variations. The same conclusion would seem 
to hold for their original mental differences. That some dif- 
ferences in hereditary reactions to stimuli do exist among the 
human races would seem to be confirmed by history and 
experience, and also by some experimental evidence. In 
general, the differences in the elementary intellectual functions 
are again insignificant, although the army mental tests in the 
United States are held by some to show that the negro is 
inherently intellectually inferior to the white race by about 
20 per cent.’ Again, however, the differences between the 
races, like the differences between the sexes, would seem to 
be more temperamental and emotional than intellectual; that 
is, they consist in the greater or lesser strength of certain 
natural impulses in one race than in the other. They are 
quantitative differences, as we have just said, not qualitative. 
It may seem Utopian to suggest that the differences between 
the races are complementary, and when rightly understood 





7 See Gault, Social Psychology, Chap. V; also Pyle, The Psychology 
of Learning, p. 205; and especially Ferguson’s article on “The Mental 
Status of the American Negro” in The Scientific Monthly for June, 
1921, pp. 533-543. Professor Pyle’s conclusion is based upon an 
independent investigation. For the opposite view see Gregg’s paper, 
“The Comparison of Races” in The Scientific Monthly for March, 
1925, pp. 248-254. 


50 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


will not impede, but rather favor, the harmonious adjustment 
of races in a common social life. Yet there are reasons for 
thinking that this will be the ultimate judgment of science. 
All races seem to have their defects and all certain good 
points. The maladjustments between the races at the present 
time, therefore, are more probably the result of culture than 
of irreconcilable hereditary differences between races. 


Before leaving this discussion of original individual differ- 
ences, the student should note that organic differences, as well 
as organic similarity, may favor the development of group 
life. When differences are such that they favor and make 
easy a division of labor, they promote interdependence, and 
so social solidarity, rather than the reverse. It is such differ- 
ences which we have called complementary. Probably most 
of the normal differences between individuals brought about 
by organic evolution are of this sort. They help rather than 
hinder the development of social life, if rightly understood 
and utilized. 


Tht Origin of Group Life among Animals 


Social evolution is rooted in the necessities of organic 
existence. By biological necessity most species of animals 
live in groups. The processes of nutrition and reproduction 
in all the higher forms of life involve a necessary inter- 
dependence among organisms of the same species. This 
necessary interdependence of living forms in the food and 
reproductive processes has undoubtedly been the basis of 
social evolution. Animals found it necessary to live in 
groups in order to procure an adequate food supply, to repro- 
duce and care for offspring, and, lastly, to protect them- 
selves against enemies. These three necessary life-processes 
from the start gave rise to living in groups Life, therefore, 
never developed in an isolated way, each individual by him- 
self. From the very beginning there has been more or less 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION | 51 


group life among organisms of the same species. The 
isolated and solitary individual has been an exception in the 
world of animal life, particularly in all higher forms. Social 
groups, or groups of organisms carrying on a common life 
by means of mental interstimulation and response, have their 
origin in the necessary interdependence of life-processes of 
organisms of the same species. 

Now if this be true, the origin of social or group life is 
manifestly biological. In its lowliest beginnings such living 
in groups was merely a phase of organic evolution. At first, 
too, the interdependence was undoubtedly purely physical, 
and there can be little doubt that such physical inter- 
dependence was the basis upon which later developed the 
mental interaction which we have seen to be the essence 
of social life. This mental interdependence must be regarded 
as a result of the breaking up of the original physical inter- 
dependence through the development of relatively independent 
individuals, who had to retain their unity of activity through 
interstimulation and response. Social life must be regarded, 
accordingly, as a higher, more complex unity of a psychic 
_character which has developed out of a primitive biological 
unity. 

Aside from emphasizing the primitive biological basis of 
group life, this conclusion is very important for sociological 
theory because of the serious errors in social theories in the 
past which come from the assumption that social groups have 
their origin through the coming together of individuals who 
were developed in isolation or separateness. In order to 
obtain society, the theorist had to find a cause which would 
bring together such individuals developed in isolation. The 
result was that the organic character of group life was lost 
sight of, and that tke unity of social groups seemed a mystery 
which could be explained only through some intellectualistic 
or else some mechanical theory. As soon as we see, how- 
ever, that group life springs spontaneously from the necessi- 


52 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ties of the process of living; that it has grown up out of the 
fundamental phases of that process, namely, the food process, 
the reproductive process, and defense, then there is no 
mystery regarding social life. It becomes clear that social 
life is an expression of the original and continuing inter- 
dependence of individuals in a common life-process. But, it 
may be asked, which factor plays the leading part in the 
origin and development of social groups—food, reproduction, 
or defense? 


Social Life in Part a Function of the Food Process 


It may be admitted at once that social or group life grows 
out of both of the two most fundamental phases of the process 
of living—the food process, or the activities connected with 
nutrition, and the reproductive process, or the activities 
connected with the birth and rearing of offspring. The food 
process, however, seems to have acted chiefly in a negative 
way upon the earliest beginnings of association. As a rule, 
organisms of the same species remain together as long as 
food is abundant and scatter only when the conditions of 
nutrition become unfavorable. Now when living forms 
remain in close proximity, they tend to become dependent 
upon one another in the process of living. These relations 
create mutual interdependence. In the higher forms of life, 
moreover, association and cooperation often give control over 
food, because a food supply can be more easily secured by a 
group of cooperating individuals than by isolated individuals. 
Natural selection operating upon groups would, therefore, 
favor those groups which associated in order to control food 
supply. It would especially favor groups in which the 
interactions between individuals were quick and sure—that 
is, groups which developed the power of mental interstimu- 
lation and response, and so, of intelligent cooperation and 
orderly relations among their individual units. From this 
point of view it is possible to say that social life was developed 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION _ 53 


as a control over the food process. From the standpoint 
of biology social life is a variation or mutation in the form 
of living which has been found advantageous in the procuring 
of adequate subsistence. This does not mean, however, that 
social or group life, even in the animal world below man, was 
developed wholly or even chiefly to control food. Social or 
group life from the very beginning has existed for other 
purposes than control over the food process, though food is, 
of course, prerequisite for any sort of survival and also for 
reproduction. The food process, however, is only one factor 
in social organization and development. Social life even 
among the brutes is equally a function of the processes of » 
reproduction and defense. 


Social Life in Part a Function of the Process of Defense 


Among the things in the environment to which organisms 
have always to adjust themselves, besides food, are inanimate 
enemies and animate enemies, either of the same species 
or of others. Now defense against enemies, whether animate 
or inanimate, can be much better undertaken by groups of 
individuals than by isolated individuals. The process of 
defense in the animal world, therefore, tends toward the 
formation and maintenance of groups. Many writers have 
been inclined to make the necessities of defense the main 
factor in accounting for group life and organization.- This 
may be so in the case of some species; for it is certain that in 
the world of life there are no dangers which animals have to 
fear so much as attacks by other animals; and, therefore, 
that there is no force working for group cohesion stronger 
than the necessities of defense against other animals, either 
of the same or related species. In many cases the most 
cohesive groups among the higher animals are those which 
function largely for defense. In the struggle of group with 
group the chances are that the larger and better organized 
group will survive. Here, again, we find natural selection 


54 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


placing a premium upon group life. Ultimately, the outcome 
of intergroup struggle is to favor those groups that develop 
the greatest unity, the most intelligent codperation, and the 
best leadership in facing a common foe. Living in groups 
must, therefore, be regarded in part as a method developed 
by evolution for defense against enemies. 

But it is easy to exaggerate the importance of the role of 
conflict in the world of life, and especially in the origin 
of social groups. It must be conceded that conflict is one of 
the important factors, though it would seem that defense 
would come in not in the very origin of the group but rather 
to safeguard it after it had been formed. Moreover, defense 
against enemies is largely simply the negative side of the food 
process which we have just discussed and of the reproductive 
process which we will now consider. 


Social Life in Part a Function of the Reproductive Process 


In spite of the importance of food and defense against 
enemies, it seems probable that reproduction has played the 
chief part in the origin and development of social or group 
life. The birth and care of offspring among all the higher 
animals have been, almost from the earliest stages of organic 
evolution, very important phases of life. From the stand- 
point of the continuity of life, that is, from the standpoint of 
the species, the reproductive process is of equal importance 
with the food process. Obviously, sexual reproduction has 
always necessitated the interaction of two individuals; but 
the association to which it gives rise in the earlier stages 
of organic evolution is often momentary and indefinite. It 
is not until we find the production of “child” forms which 
need prolonged and tender care on the part of one or both 
parents that the reproductive process gives rise to definite, 
intimate and prolonged association. It is probably the associa- 
tion of mother and child which started intimate, primary 
group life. At any rate, out of this relationship sprang 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 55 


the family in the full sense of the term, that is, an indefinite 
association of parents and offspring. Out of the family grew 
the consanguineous group, and out of the kindred group 
grew many of the most important features of human society. 

The relationship of the child form to the parent form 
becomes more prolonged, and hence of more social impor- 
tance, as organic evolution advances. In those species where 
the dependence of the child form upon the parent form is 
very slight the social results of the reproductive process seem 
also to be comparatively unimportant; but with the prolonga- 
tion of the period of immaturity of the child and of its 
dependence upon the parent form, there is increasing necessity 
for the codperation of both parents in the care of offspring; 
and hence the reproductive process brings about increasingly 
important social results. It develops, if it does not originate, 
a whole series of reactions of a sympathetic or altruistic 
character. It makes possible the continuity of face-to-face 
or primary group life, and so a group which can transmit 
culture. From an evolutionary point of view, the higher 
forms of group life must be regarded, therefore, as built up | 
by the reproductive process; that is, by the necessities con- 
nected with the birth and rearing of offspring needing 
prolonged and tender care. 

It is quite as right, therefore, to say that the origin of living 
in groups is in the reproductive process as to say that it is 
in the food process or in conflict; and that the social process 
is a function of the reproductive process as to say that it is 
a function of the food process or of defense. When we ex- 
amine the whole series of animal groups, from the ants and 
bees to man, we find them to be as obviously devised to guard 
the birth and rearing of each new generation as to secure an 
adequate food supply or defense against enemies. Indeed, 
most of the peculiar arrangements in animal groups, as well 
-as in the social life of man, seem designed to safeguard 
the reproductive process. There is, therefore, much truth 


56 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in the contention cf those writers who have claimed that 
social life has developed about the child. Child care, at any 
rate, has been one of the principal interests of human groups 
from the earliest times. The child has been the center not 
only of family life, but of the whole social system as well. 
Safeguarding the child’s heredity, birth, and education has 
been the chief end of much institutional development in human 
society. While the food process has been the basis for the 
development of man’s economic life, and the defense process 
the main basis for the development of his political life, the 
reproductive process has served as the basis for the develop- 
ment of much of man’s higher social and moral life.® It is 
the keystone of the arch of social life. 

Thus we see that the origin of social life, even below the 
human level, was complex, and that all three of the great 
phases of the life-process, nutrition, reproduction, and 
defense, were factors therein. Consequently social evolution 
cannot be regarded as a product of any one of these factors 
alone. Living in groups has functioned with reference to all 
of these phases of life and no single one has determined it. 
May we, then, safely proceed to interpret the social life of 
man in terms of these three fundamental factors, food, 
reproduction, and defense? The materialistic theories of 
human society have generally proceeded upon the assumption 
that this may safely be done. They have ignored in large 
measure the peculiar traits of man and the importance of 
human psychology. To such social thinkers it has seemed 
adequate to interpret the human social process in terms of 
these fundamental organic needs in reaction with the situa- 
tion in the physical environment. 

Such a sociology may be adequate for animal groups, but 
it is not adequate for the social life of man for the simple 


LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LCCC tl tc, 

8 See Chapter IV of this book for the expansion of these state- 
ments, especially as to the role of the family in the transmission 
of culture. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 87 


reason that man has passed through many independent stages 
of evolution which have endowed him with qualities which no 
brute possesses. Social psychology would be of little impor- 
tance for sociology if we could understand human social life 
adequately through the factors which explain the group life 
of animals. To be sure, in our study of human social life 
we shall not be able to get away from these fundamental 
biological factors. Man has not dispensed with any of the 
factors which control animal behavior because he has become 
human ; but several distinctive, new factors affect his behavior. 
Whether we explain these factors as wholly new and distinct, 
or as the result of the combination of old factors in new ways, 
it is true, at any rate, that with the coming of man, social 
life rose to a new level and the type of association was 
changed. The fundamental factors—nutrition, reproduction, 
struggle for existence, variation, heredity, instinct, habit, and 
intelligent adaptation—all remained, but they became com- 
bined in a new and distinct complex which we call “culture.” 
Social evolution in the human species, in other words, reached 
a stage of development in which a new and seemingly inde- 
pendent phase has developed which we have already called 
“cultural evolution.” But it was organic evolution which 
made cultural evolution possible. Let us see how this took 
place. 


The Origin of Human Society 


If, from the scientific standpoint, it is impossible to regard 
man as anything else than a highly developed animal. so 
human society cannot be regarded strictly as having had an 
independent origin, but must be considered scientifically as 
a developed form of animal association. Many of the forms 
of human association were doubtless fixed in the subhuman 
stage, such, for example, as the essential relations between 
the sexes. In this sense human society must be regarded 
as an inheritance from man’s prehuman progenitors. The 


58 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


forms of association among the earliest men doubtless rested 
upon instinctive adaptations which came about as the result 
of biological necessities. Probably the simpler forms of 
group life or association among men can, therefore, be 
explained in the same way in which we have already 
explained group life among animals. Let us note again 
what sort of social or group life this was. 

In the animals below man we find the fundamental adjust- 
ments of behavior largely provided for through inherited 
instincts, though even the brutes are capable of modifying 
their inherited reactions to some extent through the formation 
of intelligent habits. But if any individual in the brute 
world thus acquires any special skill or superior control over 
his environment, he does not possess the ability to communi- 
cate these attainments to any appreciable extent to his fellows; 
and the behavior of the group is accordingly not appreciably 
affected or modified. It is only the behavior of the individual 
which is affected. It is evident that social life among the 
brutes, so far as it exists, is simply the result of organic 
evolution through natural selection. 

But when we ascend to man, we find new factors in his 
collective behavior. While man possesses, probably, funda- 
mental instinctive adjustments, and while he shares with the 
higher animals the capacity to modify his conduct through 
the formation of habits, he possesses in addition certain 
superior intellectual powers and superior means of inter- 
communication with his fellows in the form of articulate 
speech. These peculiar endowments of man become the 
basis for a new type of social evolution. It becomes possible 
to develop a type of social life which is dominated by a 
learning process—by acquired habits, acquired intelligence, 
and acquired values; in other words, a type of social life 
which is dominated by “culture.” ® 


® See the writer’s paper, “The Educational Theory of Social Prog- 
ress” in The Scientific Monthly for November, 1917 (pp. 439-450). 


. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 59 


Now culture is the distinctive feature of human social life, 
and, as we have just said, dominates most of the social 
behavior of man. By culture we mean man’s power of control 
over nature and himself. More concretely, we mean tool- 
making and institution-making. Culture, therefore, includes 
the whole of man’s material civilization and such phases of 
his social life as language, literature, art, religion, morality, 
law, and government. None of these things are possessed 
by any of the brutes, and yet it is obvious that they dominate 
much of human behavior. They create the distinctively 
human elements in the social life. Man as a social creature 
is largely a cultural being. We must understand culture, 
therefore, if we are to understand human society. It is 
culture which has made man human. 


Distinctive Factors in Human Social Evolution 


To what peculiar traits of the human individual, as created 
by organic evolution, is culture due? Upon what inherent 
individual traits does it rest? The whole of physical anthro- 
pology and of human psychology would be needed to answer 
this question completely. In a general way these sciences 
tell us that human culture rests upon four chief traits which 
distinguish man as an individual in the animal kingdom. 
These traits are: (1) man’s superior brain with its power 
of abstract thought, of forming “general notions” or “inde- 
pendent ideas”; (2) man’s power of articulate speech, or of 
vocalizing sound, thus symbolizing his ideas and feelings and 
making possible their intercommunication among the individ- 
uals of a group; (3) man’s prolonged immaturity, making 
his individual life plastic and enabling the formation of many 
possible habits; (4) man’s erect attitude and free hands which 
facilitate the making and the use of physical tools. To some 
extent, foreshadowings of all these special traits of man may 
be seen in the animal world below him, especially in the 
anthropoid ape; but in no species are these peculiar traits 


60 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of man developed, and hence the brutes remain cultureless. 
Let us see how each of these traits has affected man’s 
cultural and social life. . 

1. There can be scarcely any doubt that man’s culture 
is due chiefly to that fundamental mutation which we have 
already spoken of as distinguishing man especially from the 
other animals, namely, his superior brain with its higher 
intellectual centers.1° This superior brain of man, which 
anthropologists regard as the most distinctive and peculiar 
trait of man’s biological make-up, is probably the basis of the 
development of most of his other peculiar human traits, such 
as the power of articulate speech, the power of learning or 
of indefinite habit formation, and prolonged immaturity. 
Some anthropologists even think that it accounts for man’s 
upright attitude. At any rate, it accounts for man’s power of 
abstraction, of forming independent ideas, concepts, or 
“mental patterns.” It accounts for the fact that man’s type 
of adaptation is mental and usually self-conscious and intelli- 
gent. It is what has given man his power of learning, his 
capacity to profit by experience, and so to re-make his habits. 
This is not to deny that man as an animal may have certain 
peculiar instincts, but to say that it is not these peculiar 
instincts which account for his culture, though they may 
affect to some extent some of the peculiarities of his social 
life. Peculiar instincts do not give rise to culture among 
the brutes, therefore. we must turn to the distinctive traits of 
man to explain culture, and undoubtedly chief among these 
traits are his powers of intellectual abstraction, especially of 
imagination and reasoning, which were made possible through 
his larger and more complex brain. Imagination and reason- 
ing have made man a creative being. 

2. The power of articulate speech has always been noted 





10 See the writer’s paper, “Theories of Cultural Evolution” in 
American Journal of Sociology for May, 1918 (Vol. XXIII, pp. 
779-800), for elaboration. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 61 


as one of the distinct peculiarities of man and one of the 
most significant of all facts for the development of man’s 
social life.1t This power, as we have already said, implies 
the power to form abstract ideas, though it, of course, reacts 
to develop such ideas. From the moment that articulate 
speech became possible a new type of social life was also 
possible—a type in which the interactions and interrelations 
between individuals became far more definite and far more 
complex than they are among the brutes. It became possible 
to communicate from individual to individual definite ideas 
and images which would aid in the mutual adaptation of the 
whole group. By means of articulate speech, for example, 
superior skill or knowledge acquired by one individual, 
whether as a result of accident of of reflective thought, might 
be communicated to other members of his group. Thus the 
whole group might be enabled to profit by the experience and 
intelligence of one individual, and in this way the conduct of 
an entire group may be changed through the attainments of 
one fortunate or exceptionally intelligent individual. Nor 
would such attainments of a group be lost by the death of 
the generation in which they were learned. By articulate 
speech the knowledge and the patterns of the activity, or the 
adjustment, could be passed along from generation to genera- 
tion, so that each succeeding generation could acquire the 
knowledge and skill found advantageous in the experience of 
past generations. 

The patterns of action among the animals below man are 
shut up, so to speak, within the nervous organization of the 
individuals, or communicated, if at all, only by means of 
imitation of one individual by another; but, owing to articu- 
late speech among human beings, the patterns of behavior 
have escaped, so to speak, from the individual brain and are 

11 See Case, op. cit., Chap. XII; also the writer’s paper, “Mental 


Patterns in Social Evolution” in publications of American Sociological 
Society, pp. 88-100 (1922). 


62 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


transmitted from individual to individual, not simply by 
imitation, but by the spoken word or language. Thus lan- 
guage is evidently the main vehicle by which culture is 

transmitted from individual to individual and from generation — 
to generation. The patterns for culture which are handed 
down from the past we call social tradition. This social 
tradition plus the group opinion regarding the present situa- 
tion controls the coadaptive habits of the group. Thus the 
web of intercommunication in human groups forms a psycho- 
social environment which becomes the main control over 
social behavior. It is not too much to say, therefore, that 
the web of intercommunication in human groups has sup- 
planted animal instinct as the dominant factor in social 
adjustment. Thus man’s superior power: of intercommunica- 
tion, together with his superior powers of ideation and the 
formation of habits, has enabled him to build up a world 
of behavior unlike that of any of the brutes. In human 
social life it becomes less necessary to rely upon the original 
inherited tendencies of the individual. Social tradition, as 
Professor Hobhouse says, or “social heredity,’ as some 
have unhappily called it, takes the place in human group life 
of organic heredity among the brutes as the effective means 
of standardizing behavior.!* It is through tradition that the 
social past exercises control over the social present. 

3. The whole biological constitution of man as created by 
organic evolution has codperated, of course, with man’s 
superior brain and superior powers of intercommunication, 
to make human culture and the peculiar traits of human 
society. Man’s prolonged immaturity is a biological trait of 
scarcely less significance than the human brain itself for the 
understanding of human social life. A prolonged period of 
immaturity means the possibility of greater social control over 
the habits of the individual. Since it implies plasticity in 


12 Hobhouse, Social Development, p. 212; also Social Evolution and 
Political Theory, pp. 34-39. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 63 


the individual and in society, it lays the basis for education 
and for social control through education. It means further- 
more a social life which is modifiable, such as we find man to 
possess as a matter of fact, since it gives opportunity for 
custom and tradition to mold each individual in conformity 
with the habits of the group. But it has even more signifi- 
cance than this. It gives the intellectual elements of human 
society—ideas, ideals, and social values—their opportunity to 
do their work not only through social tradition, but through 
the fact that the prolonged immaturity of the individual is a 
period of trial and error, of experimenting and testing, in 
which old habits and ideas may be rejected and new ones 
may be discovered. This makes it possible for man to 
emancipate himself from the sway of mere habit and tradi- 
tion. Comte was not wrong in claiming that social progress 
depended largely upon the predominance of youth in human 
society; for ultimately the capacity of human society to 
progress does rest upon man’s prolonged immaturity not less 
than upon his superior intellectual power. The two facts 
are indeed correlatives. Man’s brain is superior only because 
it is itself a slowly developing organ, very imperfectly devel- 
oped at birth, and destined to get its full development only 
through reaction with its physical and social environment. 
Its superiority is a development which comes through use. 
The prolonged immaturity of the individual has, of course, 
affected the whole organization of human society. As Fiske 
pointed out,** it is largely responsible for the permanency of 
the union between the sexes in human society and hence for 
the development of the more intimate and sympathetic forms 
of social life. There can be scarcely any doubt that the 
prolonged immaturity of man has had much to do, not only 
with the origin and permanence of his family and kindred 
groups, but also with the high development of sympathetic 





18 The Meaning of Infancy. 


64 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


feeling and of altruism in human society generally. Without 
the care and the education of the young, which has been one 
of the main preoccupations of man from the earliest time, 
human sympathy and altruism would have been but little 
developed, and we could scarcely imagine human society to 
be as it is. Human culture and the spiritual possessions of 
humanity, such as language, art, religion, moral ideals, and 
government, have found their opportunity for development 
and transmission through the long physical and social infancy 
of the human individual. 

4. The importance of the erect attitude of man and of 
his free hands as a part of his biological nature for the 
understanding of the origin and development of his culture, 
and so of the peculiarities of his social life, is manifest. 
Indeed, these physical attributes of man have been over- 
stressed by some writers. As we have seen, culture is to be 
explained far more by man’s superior brain, his powers of 
intercommunication, and his plasticity of habit formation 
during the period of immaturity. We can scarcely imagine, 
however, what human society would be like without man’s 
erect attitude and free hands; for these have been indis- 
pensable for the making and use of physical tools as we know 
them. The reaction of the hand upon the development of 
the brain, and especially of the intelligence, has often been 
emphasized, and it is probable that it is scarcely less impor- 
tant than the reaction of the spoken word. But language and 
social tradition, rather than the hand and physical tools, have 
probably played the larger part in the development of the 
total complex of human culture. To debate this point, how- 
ever, is idle; for as we shall see, these factors are all so 
closely interwoven in culture that it is impossible to disen- 
tangle them. 


Human society, we now see, is based more upon habit 
and intelligence than upon hereditary reactions or changes in 


GROUP’ LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 65 


organic structure. Organic evolution furnished the changes 
in organic structure, such as a larger and more complex 
brain and prolonged immaturity, which made it possible to 
develop a social life based largely upon habit and intelligence. 
Organic evolution, therefore, furnished the necessary organic 
conditions; but the actual culture of every human group is a 
matter of habits, ideas, standards, and values—a matter of 
acquired rather than of inherited behavior. We must con- 
clude, therefore, that it is the more or less intelligent 
modification, direction, and control of instinctive and habitual 
activities which has produced the distinctive traits of human 
social life. This is not to propose an intellectualistic theory 
of human social origins. Because man has become a cultural 
being does not mean that he has escaped from the control of 
heredity and selection which so dominates the world of life 
below him; but in the human world man’s higher intellectual 
development and superior means of social intercommunication 
have modified the workings of heredity and selection and 
made possible an evolution, within the framework which 
they have provided, of acquired habits, ideas, and values; 
namely, an evolution of culture. But cultural evolution, as 
the human phase of social evolution, is not free to take any 
development which man’s fancy may dictate. It must develop 
within the bounds set by natural selection and by man’s 
heredity. A culture, or a civilization, which oversteps these 
bounds is just as liable to be eliminated by the forces of 
organic evolution as a species of plant or animal which is 
unadapted to its environment. If civilization is to survive 
and continue to develop it must be not by a study of 
Utopias, but by a study of necessary progressive adjustments. 
Sociology must study how man may progressively adjust 
himself to the requirements of an increasingly complex social 
existence. Human society is modifiable, and it is the business 
of the social sciences to find out in what ways and in what 
directions it can be advantageously modified. 


66 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


The Nature of Primitive Human Social Life * 


One problem yet remains which must be touched upon, 
though it belongs primarily to the domain of cultural 
anthropology. That is, what was the character of the primi- 
tive social life of man? If human society developed out of 
the association of man’s prehuman precursors, what was the 
earliest human group like? What was the character of primi- 
tive social behavior? We cannot answer these questions in 
full, but three or four points may be noted. 

1. The earliest human groups must have been small, face- 
to-face groups, or what we now call “primary groups.” No 
other groups could have existed in primitive times. The 
food supply was limited and widespread intercommunication 
impossible. It is such groups, namely, family groups or 
small hordes or neighborhoods, of a few related families, 
which still make up the peoples lowest in cultural develop- 
ment. 

2. The earliest human groups must have been controlled 
more by the human instincts, or the natural animal impulses 
of men, than the groups of modern society, since experience 
had not accumulated and social tradition had not been 
formulated. Man’s original social life started upon the 
instinctive level and has only gradually risen to the cultural 
level. Control through habit and education could scarcely 
have been organized at the beginning. Man’s sociability was, 
therefore, originally instinctive but limited to small groups. 
Wider sociability and codperation have only come through 
culture and education. Hence they have come slowly and 
with difficulty. Even yet, man’s natural tendency seems to be 
to limit his kindliness, sympathy, and altruism to small groups 
of personal associates. 

3. The earliest human groups were probably peaceful. 


14 See Goldenweiser, Early Civilization; also Case, op. cit., Chaps. 
XIII, XIX. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 67 


Their struggle was with physical nature and the world of 
animal life below them, not with one another. Human groups 
were too widely separated for many wars between such 
groups. The lowest peoples in point of culture, even at the 
present time, we find to be essentially peaceful. Prehistoric 
archeology shows no clear evidence of warlike instruments 
or weapons until we come to upper paleolithic times. We 
have called the lowest peoples in point of culture “savages,” *° 
but anthropological research has established the fact that war 
with its attendant ferocities and cruelties is more characteristic 
of later stages of human culture, and that it became well 
organized only in the stage of “barbarism.” It was only in 
this latter stage that slavery and cannibalism were definitely 
developed. There is no scientific evidence, therefore, which 
warrants us in believing that the most opprobrious of the 
so-called antisocial traits of man were primitive. The 
predatory and antisocial traits of man must be interpreted, 
therefore, as developments due to the transition from a social 
life of small, relatively isolated groups, whose struggle was 
chiefly with physical nature, to a social life of groups in 
close contact and in competition with each other for the 
“means of existence. In other words, predatory traits have 
been developed as habits through the development of an 
intense struggle for existence between human groups, result- 
ing from the filling up of the world with human beings. 
The predatory features of human society were probably 
less characteristic of primitive social life than they are even 
of our present civilization. It may be psychologically right 
to infer, as McDougall and others have done, that warlike 
traits have been inbred in modern man, since the civilized 


15 We may conveniently divide preliterate peoples into those who 
lived entirely by hunting and fishing and the collecting of wild 
fruits (savages) and those who in addition practiced primitive 
agriculture (barbarians). Literate peoples (those having written 
language and records) are called “civilized.” 


68 PSYCHOLOGY, OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


nations of the earth are descended largely from the fighting 
and victorious tribes of barbarism. The more probable 
explanation of the warlike and predatory traits of modern 
peoples, however, is the survival among them of the traditions 
of barbarism. 

There is nothing, so far as we can see, in man’s organic 
evolution which will necessarily prevent his adjustment to 
a world-wide, peaceful society consisting of all humanity. 
While man’s natural tendencies adjust him only to relatively 
narrow groups, yet man’s social evolution has not proceeded 
upon the basis of man’s natural tendencies, but rather upon 
the basis of acquired habits, ideas, and values. Intelligently 
formed habits have enabled man to adjust himself to wider 
and wider groups. Hence human history shows an expanding 
social consciousness. Continued social adjustment to wider 
and wider groups, however, is possible only through education 
of the individual and through conscious social ideals. It is 
through such conscious education and the deliberate adoption 
of humanitarian ideals that we can expect humanity to become 
one society. Organic evolution failed to produce the fully 
socialized individual, hence it failed to produce a type of 
individual adapted to the needs of present social life. Alone 
it could bring man only as far as the earliest stage of primi- 
tive society, that is, of savagery, and leave him there with the 
potentialities and capacities for high civilization. What 
organic evolution did for the race was to produce a type 
endowed with the potentiality and capacity for the highest 
social and cultural development. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


KroEBER, Anthropology, Chaps. I-IV. 

BusHeEE, Principles of Sociology, Chaps. V, VIII-XI. 
Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man, Chaps. I-IV. 

Case, Outlines of Introductory Sociology, Chaps. V-XII. 
CuaPin, An Introduction to Social Evolution, Chaps. I-V. 


GROUP LIFE AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 69 


ConkKLIN, Heredity and Environment in the Development of 
Men, Chaps. III-IV; The Direction of Human Evolution, 
artes 

Conn, Social Heredity and Social Evolution, Chap. I. 

Crampton, The Doctrine of Evolution, Chap. VII. 

DARWIN, Descent of Man, Chaps. I-V. 

Fiske, The Meaning of Infancy. 

Gippincs, The Principles of Sociology, pp. 199-255. 

GILLETTE, Sociology, Chaps. II-V. 

HEINEMAN, The Physical Basis of Civilization, Chaps. II-VII. 

KELLER, Soctetal Evolution, Chaps. I-III. 

Kesey, The Physical Basis of Society, Chaps. I-VIII. 

Marett, Anthropology, Chaps. J-III. 

Park and Burcsss, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
pp. 85-97; 126-136; 167-184. 

PARMELEE, The Science of Human Behavior, Chaps. XVII- 
XIX. 

Tuomas, Sex and Society, pp. 1-120; Source Book for Social 
Origins, Part I. 

Tuomson, Darwinism and Human Life; Heredity, Chap. XIV. 

THomson and Geppes, Evolution. 

THORNDIKE, Educational Psychology, Vol. III, Chaps. IX, X. 

ToPINARD, Science and Faith. 

Wiss.er,; Man and Culture, Chaps. XI, XIII. 


CHAPTER III 
GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 


Tue group life which we know presupposes mental life. 
The group life of plants and other lowly organisms we have 
agreed to regard as not true social life. At any rate, the 
interactions which we find in human groups between indi- 
viduals are largely mental, and the type of adaptation * which 
we find in human society is also mental. Therefore, as we 
have already seen, social evolution presupposes some degree 
of mental evolution, and the higher phases of social evolu- 
tion, resting upon the acquired habits, feelings, and intelli- 
gence of individuals, presuppose a high degree of mental 
evolution.2, Mental evolution, as well as organic evolution, 
must furnish the background for the understanding of human 
society. 


Organic Evolution and Mental Evolution 


Mental evolution is not something apart from organic 
evolution. If we take a strictly biological point of view, 





1 The word “adaptation” is to be preferred in most cases to the 
word “adjustment” in social psychology, since “adjustment” is usually 
used in a static sense, whereas “adaptation” implies activity, “the 
process of adjustment,” or “progressive adjustment.” 

2 As this chapter is intended to be a statement of the principles 
of individual psychology made use of in later discussions, the phrase 
“mental evolution” is used in the narrow sense of the development 
of the individual mind brought about by nature, not that brought 
about by nurture or culture. Mental evolution in this sense is the 
mental side of organic evolution. The chapter is therefore con- 
tinuous with the preceding chapter. Each topic touched upon in 
the chapter is developed sociologically in the succeeding chapters. 

70 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 7r 


mentality may be regarded as a variation i the life-process, 
It is the most significant mutation which life has brought 
forth; for when mind or consciousness appeared in organic — 
evolution, the whole balance of the world of life was changed. 
Thereafter, the determining factors in the life-process became 
more and more the inner and psychic, not the outer and 
physical. Among animals those that had this inner control 
over behavior would stand the best chance of survival; for 
by means of it they could adapt themselves quickly to their 
environment. The animal that could sense approaching 
danger and develop conscious control over its behavior could 
escape; again, if it could sense food, it could survive better 
than a form of life without consciousness. Mentality, it is 
evident, has had a survival value from the start far in excess 
of almost any other organic trait. 

Since all organisms do not show signs of mental life, we 
must seek to locate mind, if possible, in the scheme of organic 
development. The lowest organisms do not possess nervous 
systems; hence, in their case, it would seem idle to raise the 
question whether they have neural processes which are ac- 
companied by consciousness. In such forms of life, which 
include the lower animal types and the whole plant world, 
adaptation to environment is probably secured by purely phys- 
ical or mechanical means. The plant is sessile and its move- 
ments are of the simplest kind; therefore, its life-processes 
do not need conscious guidance. But as we ascend in the ani- 
mal scale, the katabolic tendencies of the organism—that is, 
the tendencies to expend energy rather than to store it up— 
increase, and hence bodily movements become greater, more 
varied, and more complex. Now the mind, with its con- 
sciousness, seems to have been developed as a control over 
the complex and varied movements which we find in the 
higher types of animal behavior.2 Even in the highest 


- 8 Some of the chief texts in psychology which have set forth the 
functional view of mind are: James, Principles of Psychology; 


72 PSYCHOLOGY: OF AUsMAN SOCIR DY 


animals, however, there are many bodily activities which are 
not accompanied by consciousness. The need of conscious 
control apparently exists only at those points where new 
adjustments are required, where changes in relatively complex 
activities occur. We may conclude, therefore, that conscious- 
ness is associated in living creatures with the process of 
adaptation, especially when the process is rapid and complex. 
The mind is evidently an organ of adaptation, whose function 
is to furnish a superior method of control over the adaptive 
processes of life. The neural processes involved in conscious- 
ness, therefore, constitute the master device produced by 
organic evolution to perfect the control of the organism 
over its environment. 

According to this view, which is that of modern psychology, 
mind is not something apart from life, but is a functioning 
element in the life-process. Like all other elemerits in life, it 
is subject to the laws of organic evolution. The fundamental 
attributes of our mental life must, therefore, be regarded 
as produced by variation, transmitted by heredity, and fixed 
by selection. They are as much determined by variation, 
heredity, and selection as the general characteristics of our 
bodies. Our capacities for sensation, for perception, for 
thought, our natural impulses, our emotions, and even our 
power of abstraction and reasoning, as we have seen, have 
been produced by organic evolution. All of these things can 
only be understood as functioning elements within the life 
process to which they bear an intimate connection. This 
does not mean, of course, that they may not function at times 
in imperfect and very disadvantageous ways, for the mind, 
as an organ of adaptation, is, even in man, still incompletely 
developed. It does indicate, however, that the mind and all 
of its processes must be regarded as a “control” over the 
adaptive operations of life. 


‘Angell, Psychology; Thorndike, Elements of Psychology; McDougall, 
Outline of Psychology; Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 73 


Now if the function of the mind is to bring about rapid, 
short-cut adaptations of the organism to its environment, 
then, manifestly, it must select among the countless stimuli 
which surround the organism those which need attention for 
the maintenance and development of life. Hence, intelligence 
is selective. From the first, therefore, mental activity is 
more or less purposeful,* which means that the mind is con- 
cerned not merely with the passive adaptation of the organism 
to its environment, but with bending and shaping the environ- 
ment to meet the needs of the organism. In the higher 
reaches of mental life the mind seems especially concerned 
with the active adaptation of the environment to the organism, 
that is, with the transformation of the environment. Most 
of the activities of man, which we call cultural, are of this 
sort; that is, they are purposeful. Whether purposeful 
activity is a form of mechanical reaction or not, as the mate- 
rialists claim, it 1s a fact, and one which is of peculiar impor- 
tance for understanding human society. 

Purposeful activity, then, is a result of the selective method 
of mind as an organ of adaptation. As we have indicated, 
the mind selects the stimulus to which it responds. More- 
over, in the higher creatures the stimuli to which responses 
are made are more and more actively sought. This shows 
that the purposeful becomes increasingly important as we 
ascend in the scale of life and of mind, and so, also, in the 
scale of social evolution. Human society, for instance, has 
become increasingly an expression of purposeful activity until, 
at the level of our present civilization, we may properly say 
that it is dominantly so. This purposive activity is particu- 





4Compare McDougall’s statement: ‘Purposiveness seems to be the 
essence of mental activity” (Outline of Psychology, p. 49). See also 
McDougall’s paper, “Purposive Striving as a Fundamental Category 
of Psychology” in The Scientific Monthly for September, 1924. 
Compare also the statements of Woodworth (Psychology, pp. 70-72) 
in which he defines purpose in effect “an internal state that lasts for 
a time and directs action.” 


74 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


larly revealed in the social sciences, which aim to replace the 
action of blind forces and circumstances in human social life 
by the action of intelligently formed purposes. 


Original Human Nature® 


Before we can exercise this control over society we must 
understand the nature with which the individual is endowed 
by birth, and the possible limitations which it imposes upon 
scientific control. Some social thinkers ignore the original 
nature of man, or say that it has nothing to do with present 
social life; ® others, as we have seen, have made the mistake 
of making everything depend upon “original nature” and have 
confounded social evolution with organic evolution. Some 
social thinkers, again, have found the original nature of man 
inherently opposed to a high development of civilization; 
others have claimed that the original nature of man is so 
socially good and perfect that all that is needed is to remove 
from it all artificial constraints. Evidently the lack of a 
scientific psychology of the individual is responsible for the 
numerous, one-sided views of human nature which afflict our 
social thinking. Let us note some of these false psychologies 
of individual behavior. 


The Passive View of Human Nature 


According to this view the individual is by nature inert and 
does not act until some external cause or stimulus compels 


5 “Human nature” is an ambiguous phrase depending for its meaning 
upon which term of the phrase is emphasized; hence the need of 
some modifying adjective. In this chapter we will use it in the sense 
of “the original nature of man.” Professor Cooley, however, uses 
the term to mean, not the original animal nature of man, but “the 
nature which is developed and expressed” in primary groups (Social 
Organization, p. 30), and most sociologists follow his example. In 
later chapters the phrase is sometimes used in Cooley’s sense without 
a modifying adjective. The student will experience no confusion 
if he observes the context. 

6 This seems to be the position of Professor C. C. Josey in The 
Social Philosophy of Instinct. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 7s 


him to do so. Sense impressions received from the external 
world, according to this theory, are what cause individual 
activity. The nervous system is regarded merely as a system 
of conductors. Action, accordingly, must be explained always 
through external stimuli, or the way that these stimuli asso- 
ciate with other stimuli already received and stored up by the 
nervous system. This would make the original nature of the 
individual, his character, and behavior simply the result of 
the circumstances of environment. 

Now it is true that the environment acts upon the organism; 
but it is also true that the organism acts upon the environ- 
ment, and that the:organism is relatively much more active 
than the environment. The organism is dynamic; the 
environment is relatively static. Modern biology inclines to 
the view that spontaneity, that is, self-activity, is a character- 
istic of living bodies. A great biologst has said,’ “the 
organism is an active, self-assertive, self-adaptive, living 
creature—to some extent master of its fate.” Biological and 
psychological experiments have shown that living organisms 
remain active in media from which all changes in stimulation 
have been excluded.? The conclusion has been reached, there- 
fore, that the living organism is by nature self-active, and 
does not require stimulation from its environment in order to 
act. The organism under all normal conditions is constantly 
discharging energy which it has accumulated through its 
nutritive and other organic processes. This conclusion is in 
accord with the trend in modern physical science. If the 
kinetic theory of matter is not yet definitely established, it 





7 See Thomson, Heredity, p. 284. 

8See Jennings, The Behavior of the Lower Organisms, pp. 191, 
283-286. 

9 Compare Hobhouse’s statement (Mind in Evolution, Revised Edi- 
tion, p. x): “The fundamental fact everywhere is that the living 
being is not passive, but active, not mechanical in its reaction to 
things, but assertive, plastic, and, in a measure proportioned to its 
development, self-determining.” 


76 PSYCHOLOGY OPsHUMAN SOCLBRY 


seems about to become so. According to this theory, the 
passive view of physical nature is an illusion, for every particle 


of matter in the universe is in spontaneous motion, owing. 


to its own internal nature, without waiting for the push of 
any external force.?° 

Now if the passive view of organic life below man, and 
even of physical nature, has been given up by modern science, 
then even more must we abandon the passive view of human 
nature; for the higher we ascend in the scale of animal organ- 
isms, the more katabolic their nature becomes; that is, the 
‘more they are constantly discharging energy. The human 
individual must be regarded as self-active, taking up from 
his environment whatever he needs in order to aid him in 
adapting himself to his surroundings. He does not react to 
all the stimuli in his environment, but selects rather those 
which have to do with his self-preservation and _ self- 
development. In other words, the individual selects the 
stimuli to which he attends according to his organic needs 
or acquired interests. Action really starts from within. The 
external stimulus is not so much that which compels action 
as that which gives opportunity for action and conditions it. 
It is a common error of those who are ignorant of human 
psychology to speak of the external stimulus as though it 
were the cause of action or behavior ; but the cause of a given 
act lies, rather, in the whole set of the nervous system of 
an individual and in all the environing conditions.* The 





10 A good brief summary of the new physics will be found in 
The Scientific Monthly for February, 1925, especially in Sir Ernest 
Rutherford’s article “Electricity and Matter.” See also J. A. Crow- 
ther, Jons, Electrons, and Ionizing Radiations, Chap. XVI. Pro- 
fessor E. W. Washburn (Introduction to the Principles of Physical 
Chemistry, p. 11) sums up the new theory thus: “The molecules 
of every substance, the atoms within the molecules, and the elec- 
trons within the atoms are in constant motion.” 

11 Compare the careful discussion of this point in Miss Follett’s 
Creative Experience, pp. 54-66. Miss Follett says: “Stimulus is not 
cause and response the effect ... the sociologist must note as 


i 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 77 


subjection of the individual to his environment is, therefore, 
not immediate, as the passive view of human nature supposed, 
but only indirectly through habit and the selective power of 
the environment. 

But the environment continually reacts upon and modifies 
the individua! during his lifetime. For while the beginning 
of activity lies in the needs and nature of the organism, yet 
the stimulus maintains, develops, and conditions the activity. 
Thus the activity of the organism becomes modified through 
reaction with the environment. The total behavior of the 
individual can, of course, only be understood through under- 
standing his inner constitution, on the one hand, and the 
stimuli in the environment to which he may react, upon the 
other hand. What this inner constitution of the individual 1s 
we shall see more in detail directly. Here we wish only to 
emphasize that the individual must be conceived of as a self- 
active and relatively independent unit, more or less capable 
of determining his own behavior among the conditions and 
forces surrounding him. 


The Hedonistic View of Human Nature 


Closely connected with the passive view of human nature 
is the hedonistic theory of individual behavior, according to 
which, the individual is moved to action wholly by pleasure 
or pain using those terms in the broad sense of agreeable 
and disagreeable feeling. Perhaps this theory was never 
better stated than when Bentham said, “Nature has placed 
mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain 
and pleasure.” This theory has played a great part in the 
social thinking of the past, especially in economics and ethics. 





carefully, must see as integral part of the causal process, internal as 
well as external condition.” As regards organic metabolism initiating 
behavior, she quotes Professor E. B. Holt (p. 66) as follows: “If 
driven by metabolism, we have a disturbed nervous system, that 
system will so act toward environment as to put environment in that 
state which will make it send to the nervous system what it needs.” 


78 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


It was supposed by the advocates of this theory that some 
feeling of pleasure was necessary to move an organism toward 
an object and some feeling of pain or disagreeableness to ~ 
repel from an object. The organism was considered to be 
passive, until the sense of some stimulus gave rise to either 
a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling. If the feeling was 
pleasurable, then the organism was attracted toward the 
stimulus and action developed; but if the feeling was 
unpleasant, the organism was repelled from the stimulus and 
action inhibited.'? 

But the view that the organism is essentially active with 
reference to its environment has destroyed the foundations of 
this theory. We no longer need to suppose that it is always 
some pleasant or unpleasant feeling which leads to action. 
Psychologists are now unanimous in their opinion that 
activity may be antecedent to feeling and that feeling accom- 
panies, rather than precedes, activity. Nevertheless, feeling 
may modify activity. Pleasant feeling seems to reinforce 
activity, while unpleasant feeling may inhibit activity. The 
mistake of the hedonistic view of human nature was rather 
that it made pleasant and unpleasant feeling the sole motive 
to action, and so the sole explanation of behavior. Human 
nature is not so simple. 


The Egoistic View of Human Nature 


This view is also more or less closely connected with the 
two preceding theories. It is the view which regards every 
act of the individual as selfish or self-regarding. It was a 
view easy to hold as long as the theory that every act was the 
outcome of pleasant or unpleasant feeling was held. But 
with the more biological theory of original human nature, 


12 For criticism of psychological hedonism, see Bernard, Instinct, 
pp. 458-463; also Meyer’s articles on “The Nervous Correlate of 
Pleasantness and Unpleasantness” in The Psychological Review, 
Vol. XV. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 79 


which modern science has established, we now see that 
activities may be as easily other-regarding as self-regarding. 
Variation and natural selection can as easily establish innate 
impulses in the individual toward action favorable to others 
or to the race as to self.12 We find in original human nature 
both altruistic, or other-regarding, impulses and egoistic, or 
self-regarding. Both egoism and altruism are equally natural, 
though the necessities for the struggle for existence have 
made the egoistic impulses stronger in most animals, including 
man. Which impulses will be stronger in the adult individual 
is, however, a matter of education and environment. Here 
it is important only to note that both egoism and altruism 
are equally natural, and that it is a psychological error to 
derive altruistic behavior in general from egoistic impulses. 


The Individualistic View of Human Nature 


Somewhat related to all three of the preceding views is the 
view that the individual is a quite independent and self- 
contained unit, who comes onto the stage of life completely 
equipped for action and with a definite nature. According 
to this view, each individual is a separate creation. His 
connections with his fellow men are adventitious and non- 
essential. As we have seen, modern science says that the 
individual has been produced through the operation of the 
organic forces which have evolved his species; that he has 
nowhere developed in isolation, but é¢verywhere in association 
with his fellow beings; and finally, that natural selection has 
established in him impulses and capacities which concern the 
race and the members of his group even more than they 
concern himself as an individual. While science shows the 
individual to be a self-active, more or less self-determining 
unit, it shows him at the same time to have been fashioned 


13 Compare Hobhouse’s statement (Mind in Evolution, p. 339): 
“The conception of a primitive egoism on which sociability is some- 
how overlaid is without. foundation either in biology or psychology.” 


80 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


by an organic evolution which has been conditioned by social 
evolution; that is, that the individual has been developed 
as a member of a group. It shows, in particular, that the ~ 
mental capacities and character of the human individual have 
been developed in connection with group life, and that their 
main function has been to adapt the individual to his group; 
that is, to make possible a process of interaction among indi- 
viduals which may enable them mutually to adjust themselves 
to one another in the carrying on of the life of the group. 
Mind is, therefore, not an individualistic matter. Even a 
man’s instincts and appetites link him to his fellow men. 
The most egoistic of his natural impulses are found upon 
analysis to presuppose social life. Even the feelings, which 
seem so peculiarly an individual matter, give value to the life 
and actions of others not less than to the life and actions of 
oneself. The main individual mental processes act as a link 
between individuals and further their better mutual adaptation 
to one another in the process of living together. Mind is an 
organ of social interconnection as well as of adaptation. 

All this can be said of the original tendencies and capaci- 
ties of man. If we include any consideration of his acquired 
traits, his social nature becomes even more obvious; for it is 
obvious that language, habits, thoughts, standards, and values 
are all acquired by the individual from his social environment. 
He could scarcely acquire these if originally he did not 
inherit social tendencies and capacities; or rather, if he had 
not been evolved as a member of a group and for living in 
groups. Human personality is mainly acquired and a creation 
of the human social process. Philosophical or psychological 
individualism must, therefore, be given up; but the main truth 
which it sought to emphasize, that a human group is not a 
simple mass, but is made up of relatively independent, 
autonomous individuals, will stand. The individual is not 
merely a relatively independent center of energy, but is the 
variable, and so the creative, element in the group life. The 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 81 


influence of the creative personalities of individuals upon 
group life must be taken into account. The key to the 
activities of a human group is, therefore, not merely the 
principles which apply to the mass as a whole, but also in 
the laws and principles of individual behavior. It should not 
be forgotten, however, that human groups are functional 
units, and that individuals in social relations always form 
for one another a mutual environment, which is by far the 
most important part of their total environment; and that, 
therefore, the group and its organization is not less real than 
the individual and his behavior. 


Social Adaptation 


The whole life of the group, as well as of the individual, 
centers around habitual and adaptive activities. The mental 
life of the individual, as we have seen, begins in life activity 
and ends in life activity. Conscious processes come in to 
intermediate and control larger activities. They function, 
as we have already said, to control action or behavior in 
those complex situations in which the unconscious, physiologi- 
cal reactions of the body are inadequate to secure adaptation. 
They function, therefore, especially to control the individual’s 
social behavior. 

Now, just as the mental life of the individual centers 
around habit and adaptation, so, also, does the life of the 
group. Just as conscious processes in the individual appear 
in the transition from one habit to another at those points 
where purely mechanical means of adjustment are inadequate, 
and there is need of conscious control of action, so processes 
of mental interstimulation and response, or the various forms 
of intercommunication, appear in a group in the transition 
from one form of social activity to another, when uncon- 
scious means of reciprocal adjustment on the part of indi- 
viduals are inadequate. The whole process of interstimulation 
and response between individuals evidently comes in to 


82 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


intermediate and control processes of social adaptation. The 
social process is a process of reciprocal progressive adapta- 
tion of individuals to one another in the carrying on of some 
phase of group life. Hence the greater part of the con- 
sciousness of individuals is taken up with the relations of 
individuals to one another. If this were not so, the mutual 
adjustments of their activities would be impossible under the 
conditions of a complex group life. The mental life of the 
individual and his social life in his group are, therefore, 
inseparable. To understand one we must understand the 
other. But our problem is to understand the behavior of the 
group, rather than the behavior of the individual. But if 
social and mental life are inseparable, in order to understand 
the behavior of groups, we must understand everything which 
enters into the behavior of the individual. The individual — 
mind is the basis of group behavior, 


The Different Levels of Human Behavior ?* 


We have already seen that original human nature, even as 
given us by organic evolution, is complex, and that we cannot 
explain it in such simple terms as popular psychology is 
accustomed to do. But it is much more complex than what 
we have thus far indicated. In the evolution of behavior 
from the protozoans to man, different levels of behavior have 
appeared and different “controls” over behavior have been 
developed. By the very nature of the process of evolution 
the later and higher levels of behavior do not supplant the 
earlier and lower levels. At best, they simply act as controls 
over the lower. In the actual, concrete behavior of individuals 
they are inextricably mingled; but for the sake of psychologi- 
cal analysis, in order to understand human behavior, we must 
try to separate them. Five different levels of human behavior 
are evident upon analysis: 


14One of the best recent psychological presentations of this topic 
is Woodworth’s Psychology, A Study of Mental Life. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 83 


1. Hereditary or Instinctive Reactions *® 


Difficult as it may be to distinguish the hereditary, or the 
inborn, from the acquired element in human behavior, it must 
be attempted. So fundamental a problem cannot be dodged, 
even though instruments of precision have not been perfected 
to make this distinction. The distinction is important scien- 
tifically because we must know the biological or organic 
equipment of the individuals we start with.*® It is important 
practically because we must discriminate between the “native,” 
or “inborn,” in the behavior of the individual and of the 
group and what is “acquired,’ or “learned.” For this 
knowledge of the relative influence of the inborn and the 
acquired will largely determine the type of scientific control 
which must be developed over life. If the innate proves to 
be most important, emphasis must be placed on the biological 
approach in controlling social life; if the acquired, instead, 
stands out as the most influential, the stress must be put on 
environmental means. The question of the relative position 
of the innate and the acquired is still a matter of controversy 
- among both psychologists and sociologists, and we can only 
indicate what seems to us in the light of our present knowl- 
edge the most reasonable conclusion.’7 Scientific balance 
must be preserved in this as in all controversies. 

We have noted that all organisms are by nature active, and 
that their original activities are directed to maintaining and 
developing the life of the organism. These original activities 
of living forms, which nearly coincide with what biologists 
call “tropisms,” include the simple activities which we find in 
the lower organisms connected with the processes of nutrition, 


15 For the sociological elaboration and applications of this topic, 
see Chap. IX of this book. 

16 Compare Woodworth, op. cit., Chap. V. 

17The most recent summing up of this controversy is to be 
found in Professor Bernard’s Instinct, A Study in Social Psychology. 


84 PSYCHOLOGY yORJBHUMANSSOCIi ms 


reproduction, and defense."* In higher organisms with 
nervous systems we find these same organic reactions, only 
more complex, and, as we should expect, apparently definitely 
correlated with the structure of the nervous system. As the 
hereditary structure of the nervous system becomes still more 
complex as we ascend in the scale of life, these organic 
reactions persist, only becoming more complex, more numer- 
ous, more indefinite, and more modifiable. In the human 
individual, therefore, we find few or no hereditary reactions 
which are of the fixed and definite type which we find in 
the lower types of life, such as among the insects. On the 
other hand, we seem to find a great variety of “native 
impulses,” “natural” or “instinctive tendencies,” all more or 
less modifiable. A few of these, like the impulses connected 
with food and sex, are definite appetites; most of them, how- 
ever, appear in conscious experience as spontaneous or 
“natural desires.” Hence, we are forced to conclude that 
among our nervous reactions to stimuli are certain reactions 
which we may call original; that is, they are unlearned and 
furnished us by heredity. The only way in which heredity 
can express itself in behavior is through inherited tendencies 
to react in certain ways. These inherited reaction tendencies 
probably represent inborn, hereditary, or preorganized, con- 
nections in the nervous system, and so to that extent may be 
regarded as inherited “action patterns.” 1® Biologists tell 
us that roughly one-third of the connections in the nervous 
system of man are organized at birth or shortly after. While 
it would be unsafe to infer that this represents the part which 
hereditary reactions play in the behavior of the individual, it 
at least indicates that there are certain preformed or heredi- 


18 See Kellogg’s statement (Mind and Heredity): “A tropism is 
the inborn, diffuse tendency to move to or from some stimulus, as 
light, heat, food, or the mate.” 

19 Inherited reaction patterns are of several types, some being dom- 
inantly emotional rather than impulsive, but for the reason given on 
p. 83 we lump all together. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 85 


tary pathways in the nervous system, which give rise to what 
we may call natural or organic reactions in contrast to the 
reactions which are acquired or learned by the individual. 
The hereditary bent is thus one factor in behavior. 

Now these organic reactions with which the individual is 
equipped by his hereditary nature, psychologists usually call 
“instinctive reactions.’ Because the word “instinct” suggests 
the hard and fast types of hereditary reaction which we find 
in the insects and other lower forms of life, there has been 
great objection to the use of the word in describing any part 
of the social behavior of man.?° Certainly there are in man 
no “inherited automatic action patterns” such as we find in 
the insects, unless it be a few simple reflexes. It would 
perhaps be better, usually, to employ such terms as “native 
impulses,’ “natural tendency,” “inherited proclivity,” or the 
like.2* We shall employ the terms “instinct” and “instinctive 
tendency” as synonymous with these other terms, and as 
covering the whole hereditary element in human behavior 
except inherited capacity.2* In this broad sense of native 
impulse, or inherited reaction tendency, there is probably an 
indefinite number of instinctive reactions in the human indi- 
vidual. In this sense it is probably true that man has more 
instincts than any other animal, as Comte said, long before 


20 Many biologists hold to this hard and fast view of instinct. 
Thus Kellogg (Mind and Heredity) implies that in instinct, there 
is but one way to a necessary result, and instinct runs in prede- 
termined grooves, offering no alternatives. If we take instinct in 
this sense, there is no instinctive element in human behavior, apart 
from the simple reflexes. 

21 Professor Dewey (Human Nature and Conduct, p. 105) thus 
justifies a similar position: “The use of the words instinct and 
impulse as practical equivalents is intentional, even though it may 
grieve critical readers. The word instinct taken alone is still too 
laden with the older notion that an instinct is always definitely or- 
ganized and adapted—which for the most part is just what it is not 
in human beings.” 


» $2 Allport (Social Psychology, p. 79f.) would use the phrase 
“prepotent reflexes” to cover the same element. 


86 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


William James said the same thing.?* It would seem probable, 
at any rate, that the number of instinctive or hereditary reac- 
tions in man are greater than in any other animal, simply 
because his nervous system is so much further evolved and 
his heredity is so much richer and more complex. What are 
ordinarily called “instincts” in individual behavior, however, 
are complexes or combinations of these instinctive impulses 
with acquired reactions. Hence, the instinctive reactions of 
man are little more than a complex series of natural impulses 
or reflexes which may be modified by experience and built up 
into permanent habits. The hereditary reactions of man are, 
therefore, more plastic and modifiable than in any other 
species of animal of which we have knowledge. Nevertheless, 
for the reason which we have pointed out above, any 
psychology of human society which is based upon modern 
biology cannot escape the concept of instinct or its equivalent, 
for we have to start the social adjustments of man with 
hereditary or organic reactions if we begin at the beginning. 

What we have said thus far is purely psychological; and 
we have agreed that individual psychology does not concern 
us except as we can show that it has some definite relation 
to group life and social organization. The question remains, 
then, how far instinctive tendencies affect the behavior of 
human groups, their organization, and the development of 
human institutions. As soon as we grasp the fact that 
instinctive tendencies are the original animal impulses, then 
it becomes evident that they might affect social evolution in 
at least three ways: 

1. These original animal impulses would furnish the most 
primitive basis for adjustment in social relations. Their 
influence in human society would probably not be conspicuous 
except in the most primitive origins of institutions and of 
culture; but they would furnish at the beginning certain very 





23 Compare Bernard, op. cit., p. 522, 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 87 


simple codrdinations or adaptations between individuals, such 
as those of sex, parents and children, leader and follower. 
If we take the simpler human social groups, we shall have 
little difficulty in seeing this. The family, for example, is 
a typical group in which the instinctive element is very 
pronounced. Here we have at work, not only such natural 
tendencies as sexual and parental love, but also the impulses 
associated with attitudes.of superiority and subordination. 

2. The original animal impulses furnish human beings with 
certain persistent motives which enter into human wishes and 
turn up in social behavior constantly. Natural or instinctive 
impulses are probably the strongest motives to action in most 
human beings until relatively late in life, and in all human 
beings they persist throughout life. We must understand 
them in order to understand the real springs of activity in 
social life. No matter how complex social life becomes, it is 
based upon the modification of the hereditary reactions which 
persist throughout its structure. In every relation of life, 
therefore, the original impulses of human nature may be 
found at work beneath the acquired habits which make up 
our institutional and cultural life. 

3. In periods of emotional excitement the original animal 
impulses of human beings may come to expression almost in 
their primitive form. Under such circumstances they usually 
produce reversion to something approaching animal behavior 
under similar conditions. Such crude manifestations of 
instinctive tendencies are seen in human populations espe- 
cially in times of war, of mobs, or of other public excitement. 
Natural impulses on these occasions usually work in a brutal 
and destructive way.24 This is one of the explanations of 





24 Says Professor E. L. Thorndike (in Educational Review, Dec., 
1914): “I find many of these tendencies born in man to be archaic, 
useless, immoral adaptations to such a life as man lived in the 
woods a hundred thousand years ago—when affection had not spread 
beyond the family or justice beyond the tribe or science beyond the 
need of to-morrow, when truth was only the undisputed and goodness 


88 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the reversionary tendencies which are sometimes manifested 
in human groups. As we shall see in a later chapter, we 
touch at this point, also, upon the whole problem of evil or — 
maladjustment in human relations, though the problem is 
obviously so complex that the animal impulses of human 
nature cannot be more than one of the factors involved. 

4. Professor Dewey has suggested that the native impulses 
of human nature are not always static or reversionary in their 
influence upon the social life of man. The strictly biological 
view would seemingly force us to the conclusion that heredi- 
tary reactions can adjust individuals and groups only to past 
environments or even, perhaps, only to the conditions of life 
as they existed almost before human culture began. At any 
rate, all scientific psychology recognizes that original impulses 
are quite inadequate to secure proper adjustment in a rapidly 
changing world, such as human society now is. Professor 
Dewey, however, suggests that the very richness of man’s 
natural impulses gives him an opportunity of choice such as 
no animal possesses, and that, therefore, such opportunity has 
made for progress.*> In this way impulses come to aid, not 
only in breaking up habits that are no longer adjusted, but in 
securing new and better adjustments. Thus the plasticity and 
richness of man’s natural impulses is one of the conditions of 
social progress. This view is at least worthy of consideration. 


2. Acquired Habits *° 


Besides the activities which come to us by heredity, there 
are the many modifications of these activities which arise 
through the influence of environment. These latter we call 





only the unrebuked.” Quoted by Kilpatrick, Source Book in the 
Philosophy of Education, p. 47. 

25 “Man can progress as beasts cannot, precisely because he has so 
many ‘instincts’ that they cut across one another, so that most 
serviceable actions must be learned.” Dewey, op. cit., p. 105. 

26 See footnote page 10. The main sociological effects of habit 
are discussed in Chapters V-VIII. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 8&9 


acquired habits. They probably express the acquired connec- 
tions in the nervous system in distinction from the original 
connections which are inherited. They may, therefore, be 
called “acquired action patterns.” While habits are due to 
the modifying influence of the environment, we must not 
think that they are formed by the mechanical pressure of the 
environment upon the individual. We have already seen that 
the individual selects upon the basis of his needs the stimuli 
in the environment to which he responds. When he has 
responded successfully to new stimuli in the environment and 
has adapted himself to them, a habit of action becomes estab- 
lished. This habit becomes persistent after several similar 
responses to similar stimuli, and so takes on the character of 
a new impulse. It becomes, as we may say, “second nature.” 
Early habits, of course, are modified by later habits, and thus 
are built up the countless habits of the mature human 
individual. 

Individual attitudes and character in the adult are largely 
the result of the habits which he acquires. What we mean 
by character in the individual is the whole complex of his 
habits and mental attitudes. If we include under the term 
habit not only the bodily activities of the individual, but also 
his internal “mental attitudes,” as we may properly do, then 
we see that mature human life is very largely a matter of 
habit. 

Man’s capacity to acquire an indefinite number of habits is, 
as we have already seen, the main basis upon which cultural 
evolution, or civilization, has been built. Through the acquir- 
ing and diffusion and handing down habits of tool making and 
using and of ways of living together, man has been able to 
build up the wonderful structure of his culture. Thus the 
very substance of human culture, and so of human social 
life, is habit. Let us see what are the particular social 
expressions of habit in human society: 

1. Social usages, or “folkways,” are simply group habits, 


go PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


that is, habits shared in common by practically all members 
of a group. On the side of individual behavior these habits 
give rise to the prevalent “social attitudes” of individuals. — 
Such “social habits” ?* are the raw material out of which hu- 
man institutions are made. Practically, however, we have 
restricted the term “usage” to those social habits that are not 
particularly sanctioned by the group, but more or less uncon- 
sciously practiced. We have other names for socially preva- 
lent habits which have various degrees of social sanction 
attached to them. 

2. Social customs, or the “mores,” are the social habits 
which have been more or less sanctioned by the groups in 
which they obtain. There is, therefore, more or less social 
compulsion connected with a custom, and its violation is apt 
to bring some more or less unpleasant reaction from the 
group. When social customs have been long established and 
have been reflected upon in connection with the welfare of 
the group, they are especially apt to get very strong sanctions 
attached to them. It is these, especially, which Professor 
Sumner called the mores; and he showed that when the 
folkways become mores they become practically all-powerful 
on account of the strong social sanctions attached to them.?® 

3. Social institutions are simply social habits which are 
systematized, instituted or established by groups, and have 
still stronger sanctions attached to them than do simple cus- 
toms. They carry a step further the establishment of the 
social habit through the exercise of authority or compulsion 


3 


27 Allport (American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXIX, p. 696) 
objects to the use of the term “social habits” in the sense of 
group habits. This is in accordance with his general position that 
there is only individual behavior, and hence no group behavior or 
group habits. See again Chap. I for the argument for the reality 
of group behavior. “Socially prevalent habits’ may be read by 
those who object to the term “social habits” or “group habits.” There 
seems to be little reason for coining a new term such as “societal 
habitudes.” See the definition of the word “social” in Chap. I. 

28 See Sumner, Folkways, especially pp. 30, 173, 174. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION  o1 


on the part of a group. Institutions may be defined as 
habitual ways of living together which have been sanctioned, 
systematized, and established by the authority of communi- 
ties.2® As they represent the culmination of group control 
over social habits and social behavior, they are the especial 
concern of sociology, though folkways and customs, which 
represent less formalized and sanctioned expressions of habit 
in human society, are of scarcely less interest. So far as 
we know, institutions, in'any proper use of the term, do not 
exist below the human level. They are, therefore, one of the 
distinctive traits of human society, and along with tool making 
one of the most conspicuous products of cultural evolution. 

4. Now social organization in human groups is a result of 
their usages, customs, and institutions, and so is very largely 
a matter of habit. So far as it is on the distinctively human 
level it is a result of the habitual adjustments which the 
members of a group maintain among themselves. The preva- 
lent “social attitudes” of individuals largely result from these 
group habits. The psychological fact of habit is thus the 
main carrier of all forms of social organization which rise 
above the merely instinctive level. The social order of high 
civilization, especially, is almost entirely made up of habitual 
types of reaction, acquired, sometimes painfully learned, by 
each individual, which serve to hold each person in orderly 
relations to all the other individuals of his group. 

Thus we see that human society is more largely dominated 
by habit than by instinctive reaction or heredity. Man seems 





29 Compare Hobhouse’s definition of institution (Social Develop- 
ment, p. 49): “Part of the established and recognized apparatus 
of social life regulating a whole mass of human relations.” Some 
writers use the word wrongly to include customs and even usages. 
Maclver (Community, third edition, p. 154) rightly says: ‘Insti- 
tutions are forms of order established within social life by some 
common will. The qualifying phrase, ‘established by some common 
will,’ enables us to distinguish these from customs. ... Customs 
are but the habits of community.” 


92 PSYCHOLOGY OF ‘HUMAN SOCIETY 


to have an indefinite capacity to acquire habits. Whether this 
capacity has natural limits or not we cannot say. Some 


writers in psychology hold that habit is not second nature, but | 


something very much weaker than original nature; that, there- 
fore, man can never remain permanently adjusted to a very 
complex civilization, but through inability to learn complex 
habits and through fatigue, he will tend always to revert to 
those lower levels of behavior which will be closer to his 
original nature. It may be safely held at present that there 
is no adequate scientific evidence for these views. There is 
no evidence that our present civilization is so high that man 
cannot adapt himself to it. We know of no form of society 
or of culture which is so complex that man, through the sheer 
weakness of his original nature, is incapable of maintaining 
it. All such instances upon analysis resolve themselves into 
either faulty means of education and habituation of indi- 
viduals or faults in social organization and environment which 
are capable of correction. Man seems at the beginning of his 
cultural evolution, so far as sociology can discover, rather 
than to have reached too high a culture for his original nature. 
Even the original tendencies of human nature, barring a few 
which are connected with the functions of nutrition and repro- 
duction, are not stronger than the habits of adult life which 
have become successfully established. This is not saying, 
however, that if the original tendencies of human nature are 
wrongly dealt with, or foolishly repressed, they may not 
result in a “baulked disposition,” or other morbid or patho- 
logical manifestations.*° 

If our human world were static, instinctive impulses and 
acquired habits would be sufficient to carry on all life- 


30 The elaborate literature on this topic, especially that of the 
Freudian psychologists, needs to be used critically. Critical dis- 
cussion of the matter will be found in Wolfe, Conservatism, Rad- 
icalism, and. Scientific Method, especially Chap. VI, and in Groves, 
Personality and Sociai Adjustment, especially Chap. VII. 


—— 


to a a oe 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 93 


processes and to control behavior. We have seen that some- 
thing very much higher than our original animal impulses is 
needed to produce distinctly human social life and its culture. 
This something is in part supplied by man’s great capacity to 
acquire habits. But even habit adjusts us to the environment 
of yesterday rather than to the environment of to-day. Habit 
is an inadequate control over behavior in a moving, dynamic 
world. Habits must change with changing conditions. New 
habits must be built up continually if progress is to go on. 
Under such circumstances there is evidently needed inner 
controls over behavior, which will facilitate the process of 
adaptation or the readjustment of habits. These inner con- 
trols are feeling and thought. 


3. Feeling * 


By feeling we mean the pleasant or unpleasant tone of 
consciousness which accompanies an activity. Using the 
words in a very broad way, feeling is practically synonymous 
with pleasure and pain. It is a subjective valuation which the 
organism gives to an activity. On the neural side it seems 
to mark the reinforcement or weakening of the nervous 
current concerned with any particular activity by the lower 
and more vegetative nervous centers. When the nervous 
current is augmented or reinforced by these lower nervous 
centers the feeling experienced is one of pleasure or pleasant- 
ness. When it is weakened or diminished the feeling is that 
of unpleasantness or discomfort. Now the lower nervous 
centers usually reinforce the activities which express original 
animal impulses or the original tendencies of human nature. 
The feelings which accompany the satisfaction of these im- 
pulses are, therefore, generally pleasurable.*? But on account 


81 For the sociological elaboration and application, see Chap. XII 
of this book. 

32 Compare with the theories of feeling in Woodworth, Psychology, 
Chap. IX; also Meyer’s theory referred to on p. 78. 


94 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of man’s power. to form habits these lower centers come also 
in time to reinforce habitual modes of activity; and hence the 
feelings which accompany habitual activities are usually 
pleasant. On the other hand, the impeding of instinctive 
or habitual activities is usually experienced as unpleasant. 
Feeling, therefore, powerfully reinforces both habits and 
original impulses. It is evident that it may vary greatly from 
individual to individual, so far as it is a matter of habit. 
Peculiarities of individual constitution, of health, and of 
habit often powerfully influence our feelings and make what 
is agreeable to one person disagreeable to another. In short, 
feeling is quite a subjective and individualistic matter.** It 
is the individual’s value of an activity; or as one writer has 
happily termed it,** “it is the me-side of the whole complex of 
conscious processes involved in adjustment.” 

Now, there are several phases of feeling which demand 
especial attention on account of their influence upon behavior. 
The feelings which are connected with organic reactions, and 
which are rooted, therefore, in the hereditary constitution of 
our organism, are particularly strong, and we call them the 
emotions, Primary emotions, like the instinctive impulses, 
are original hereditary endowments of human nature, and, 
though varying in strength with individuals, are common to 
all men.*® They may be regarded as complexes of organic 
reactions, feelings, and sensations, and are among the power- 
ful motives which influence human action.*® Less strong 
than the emotions, but more prevalent and manifest in every- 
day human behavior, are the interests, desires, and wishes. 
While our strongest desires and wishes seem attached to our 
original animal impulses, the mass of our desires, wishes, and 
interests are unquestionably associated with our habits, and so 


83 Compare Woodworth, op. cit., p. 172. 

84 Miller, The Psychology of Thinking, p. 64. 

85 See Woodworth, op. cit., p. 100. 

86 [bid., Chap. VIII. See also Bernard, op. cit., Chap. XVIII. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION — 95 


may be regarded as the subjective side of our habits, involving 
not only elements of feeling but also of perception. Some- 
what more complex than the emotions or desires are the 
sentiments. These are enduring attitudes of impulse and 
feeling toward some object or idea. They are sometimes 
simply called “complexes,” though the best usage limits the 
latter term to morbid or pathological combinations of feeling 
and impulse. It has been said that the sentiments are the 
units out of which adult individual character is made.*’ 
There can be little objection to this statement if we mean by 
the sentiments the complexes of feeling and impulse which are 
associated with the habits of mature life. Finally, from all 
of these—the emotions, interests, desires, and sentiments— 
arise the social values of individuals. 

While it is a mistake to find in pleasure and pain, or in 
agreeable and disagreeable feelings, the sole motives to action, 
as the psychology of the early nineteenth century did, it is 
equally a mistake in our study of human behavior not to take 
feeling sufficiently into account. Feeling, as we have seen, 
is a conscious accompaniment of activity. Hence it modifies 
activity or behavior. If feeling is pleasurable, the activity is 
reinforced, but if feeling is disagreeable or painful the activity 
tends to be inhibited. The emotions are particularly effective 
modifiers of behavior. “Our emotions,” says Professor Pyle, 
“are back of nearly all that we voluntarily do. At the bot- 
tom of nearly every act is love or hate or envy or jealousy 
or anger or fear. Nothing of great consequence is ever 
undertaken that does not have back of it some emotion.” 
Again, Professor Cooley rightly says, “sentiment is the chief 
motive power of life and, as a rule, lies deeper in our minds 
than thought, from which, however, it is not to be sharply 
separated.” This last quotation indicates that these writers 
are using the terms emotion and sentiment in a broad way, 





37 See McDougall, Outline of Psychology, Chap. XVII. 


96 PSYCHOLOGY OF: HUMAN SOCIETY 


not excluding associated habits and ideas. The student should 
not fail to note that these psychological principles have a 


direct bearing, not only on the motivation of actual social 


behavior as we find it, but also on the motivation of higher 
types of behavior. If we can discover how to cultivate in 
individuals the right emotional attitudes and sentiments, we 
shall be a long way on the road to discovering how human 
society may be bettered. 

Thus far our analysis has been psychological, but our 
interest is not in the individual, but in the social, effects of 
feeling. What are the social effects of feeling, whether 
feeling be in the form of emotion, desire, interest, or senti- 
ment? At least three very evident social effects of feeling 
may be pointed out. 

1. Feeling furnishes the most persistent, conscious motives 
to action in the mass of individuals. Even the motivating 
power of inborn impulses is unconscious until it expresses 
itself in some form of feeling, such as emotion or desire. 
The mass of social values in a given group is embedded in 
the more or less conscious desires, wishes, and sentiments of 
the individuals of the group. To change social values we 
must educate the desires and sentiments of individuals. If 
we wish to secure changes in human society we must enlist 
the feelings on the side of those changes. Usually it is the 
sympathetic or altruistic feelings which are most favorable to 
progressive changes, as they are the most socialized of our 
feelings. Even egoistic or selfish feelings must be respected, 
however, if we are going to be successful in bringing about 
changes in society; for feeling, as we have seen, in a peculiar 
sense stands for the individual, and the individual may not 
safely be ignored in social arrangements. It is the feelings, 
or sentiments and desires, of the mass of individuals that 
immediately motivate mass action. The control of collective 


emotion and feeling is, therefore, one secret of effective social 


control. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 97 


2. Feeling has often a powerful conservative effect in our 
social life because it tends to reinforce habitual activities. 
Folkways, customs, and institutions are embedded in feeling 
and it is often very hard to get feeling to sanction a change. 
Thus an institution like monarchy or slavery, which has been 
long established, has powerful supporting feelings among the 
mass of the people, and this dead weight of feeling has to 
be overcome before a more rational institution can be estab- 
lished. This is particularly true in a population, not trained 
to use its intelligence, which guides itself largely through 
feeling. It is fortunate that feeling is not wholly a matter 
of habit or else its influence would tend to be overconservative. 

3. Feeling also often proves a dissolving force in human 
society as regards the higher types of behavior and of social 
order; for the most powerful feelings are attached to our 
instinctive or animal impulses. When an institution is need- 
lessly repressive of our original human nature, it stimulates 
reactions against itself. Strong emotions are aroused, and 
unless the repression ceases, the institution in question may 
be swept away. Hence the appeal to feeling has always been 
a method used for the overthrow of despotic and oppressive 
institutions. Unfortunately, the same appeal can be made for 
the overthrow of wise and salutary institutions; for all insti- 
tutions involve some degree of restraint upon the individual. 
Thus the anarchist makes his appeal to feeling not less than 
the true liberator. The emotions of man may, therefore, 
be enlisted on the side either of social retrogression or of 
social progress, as well as on the side of social conservatism. 
Uncontrolled emotion in human society, however, nearly 
always works either for a static condition or for retrogression. 

It is evident that feeling is a powerful force in human 
society, and, as such, that it must always be taken into 
account. But it is also evident that feeling alone is a very 
unsafe guide in our complex social life. Progress, change 
for the better in human society, involves complex and diffi- 


98 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


cult adjustments, and difficult adjustments are always 
unpleasant. Hence if we adopt feeling as a guide for our 
social behavior, we make it much more difficult to bring about 
rational changes or new adaptations in the social order. To 
be sure, the emotions can easily be enlisted against a repres- 
sive social order. But pure emotionalism reduces social 
behavior to the animal level. The sympathetic emotions, 
however, when rationally controlled, do furnish a basis for 
higher social adjustments; and so far as we can find safe 
social guidance in feeling it is largely in the emotions and 
sentiments of sympathy and love of mankind as a whole. 
Our own comfort or discomfort, pleasure or pain, can furnish 
little of such guidance, 


4. Intelligence ** 


By intelligence we mean the capacity to improve upon 
natural tendencies through profiting by prior experience.*® 
On the intelligent level of action previous experience is, 
through memory, brought to bear upon the guidance of 
present action. Intelligence differs from both instinct and 
habit in that it does not consist in already formed reactions. 
It functions to evaluate and control activities with reference 
to present and future environments, while instinct and habit 
have reference to past environments, and hence represent 
already formed reactions, one by heredity, the other by 
learning. Intelligence also differs from feeling. Feeling is 
subjective, nonanalytic, and individualistic in its reference. 
Intelligence is objective, analytic, and tends to be universal 
in its reference. The method of intelligence is not only the 
utilization of the stored-up experience of the organism, but 


88 The sociological effects of intelligence and ratiorality are dis- 
cussed more fully in Chaps. VII and X. Intelligence, of course, 
is much broader than rationality, the ability to form and use concepts. 

39 Compare McDougall, Outline of Psychology, p. 71; also Wood- 
worth, Psychology, Chap. XII. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 99 


an attempt, through attention, discrimination, and perception, 
to evaluate the present environment. These cognitive mental 
processes, therefore, come in as elements or factors in the 
process of adaptation. 

It is evident that intelligence has to do with the making of 
the more difficult and more complex adjustments of the 
organism to its environment. The most general mark of 
intelligent behavior is the:adaptation of means to ends, or the 
overcoming of difficulties by the utilization of past experience 
and the perception of relationships. In other words, the most 
general mark of intelligence is problem-solving ability. But 
intelligence solves'the problems of life not through mere 
“trial and error” responses, but through perception of rela- 
tionships, knowledge, and values. Thus intelligence plays a 
decisive role in adapting the organism to its environment. 
Man’s innate capacity for intelligence beyond that of any 
other animal is especially what has given him a distinctive 
social life; while the increase of intelligence in society 
through training of the individual mind and through the 
accumulation of knowledge is the main foundation for our 
belief that man’s social life will continue to evolve in the 
future to much higher stages of development. 

The development of intelligence in the world of animal 
life took place slowly and gradually from the lowliest begin- 
nings. In the lower animals, in general, intelligence was 
developed as an aid in carrying out instinctive impulses and 
in satisfying the demands for feeling. Even in man intelli- 
gence is still too often in subjection to animal impulses 
and to individualistic feelings. But it is not necessarily in 
subjection to these, because one way that intelligence has 
developed is as a control over action when natural impulse, 
feeling, and even habit were insufficient. In other words, 
intelligence gets its chance to control action largely when 
instincts, feelings, and habits break down. Then it has a 
chance to select among competing impulses as well as to 


100 PSYCHOLOGY: ORSHUMAN SOCIET® 


evaluate the situation in the environment. Through this 
selection it may play a large part in the formation of new 
habits. 

We are now ready to see some general effects of intelli- 
gence upon the social life, even before it reaches the level of 
rationality. 

1. First of all, it gives conscious purposes to group life, 
that is, conscious foreknowledge of the goal toward which the 
action of the group is directed. Some degree of purpose may, 
perhaps, be found in the lower levels of behavior, but con- 
scious purposes could hardly exist until one knows both what 
he wants and the means to get it. It is only the later and 
more complex adjustments in social life, however, which are 
thus intelligently purposeful. In the lower levels of behavior 
the appearance of what seems intelligent purpose is often the 
result of more or less automatic adjustment upon the basis 
of blind impulse, habit, or feeling. Only when we have 
conscious, intelligent selection of means to reach certain ends 
may we regard adaptations as consciously purposeful; but 
these we find in human society. 

2, Problem-solving ability, or intelligence, implies learning 
ability. This makes possible a form of social life which is 
more or less based upon the experience and learning of the 
individual. This is the type of social life which we find in 
humanity. Learning is not simply a matter of habit forma- 
tion; in any proper sense of the word, it is also a matter of 
intelligence. It is the intelligent control over the formation of 
habit (or over the selection of impulses) which is the basis 
of the learning process. It is the same way in groups of 
individuals as with a single individual. Groups of individuals 
learn to do new things and to build up complex adjustments 
through intelligent control of the formation of habits. It is in 
this way that man has built up a social life unlike that of any 
other animal. At bottom this is a result of the fact that 
man has passed through stages of organic evolution which 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION ior 


have developed in him a higher capacity for intelligence than 
any other animal possesses. This distinctively higher type 
of intelligence which characterizes man we call “reasoning” 
or “rationality.” 


5. Rationality 


By rationality or reasoning we mean the power of abstract 
thought, of conceptual thinking, of mental exploration, which 
enables man to see relationships which exist between facts 
and to put facts into new relationships.49 It is, of course, 
merely a higher development of intelligence and depends upon 
the power of the mind to think in symbols, or to form 
abstract ideas, “general notions,’ or concepts, which are 
relatively independent of particular objects. It is this power 
of abstraction, as we have repeatedly said, which distinguishes 
the mind of man from that of other animals and which has 
given man a power of control over his own behavior and over 
his world such as no other animal possesses. Probably the 
older and more spontaneous form of this power of abstraction 
is what we call imagination. In the process of imagination we 
put facts into new relationships; our thoughts and images 
wander, seemingly without definite direction or control, 
though some aim may be given to their wandering. In such 
a case, imagination may become constructive and so work out 
a plan, design a tool or an object of art, and so also create 
inner patterns for action. In reasoning we control our 
thoughts and have a very precise aim, to see the actual mean- 
ing of the combined premises. Thus reasoning is nothing 
more than controlled, abstract thinking in order to see new 
meanings in given relationships, and is very closely related 
to imagination. It is performing experiments, as it were, 
in imagination. Imagination is merely freer and more 
variable. Both are processes of mental exploration, while 





40 See Woodworth, op. cit., Chaps. XVIII and XIX. 


1o2 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the animals below man, so far as we know, can learn only 
by muscular exploration. 

Man’s power of abstraction, his power of imagination and 
reasoning, therefore, gives him a device for controlling be- 
havior and dealing with the environment such as no other 
animal possesses. Man through imagination and reasoning 
may evaluate activity, not simply with reference to his present 
environment, but also with reference to any possible future 
environment. By means of this superior development of his 
intelligence his mind is able to take account of facts neither 
present nor tangible to the senses, remote perhaps in both 
space and time. In this way he reaches judgments regard- 
ing these facts and forms social and moral ideals to guide 
him. Thus this highest level of intelligence and of behavior 
enables man to do many things which the simpler cognitive 
processes, such as sensation, perception, and recognition, could 
not possibly do. Reason and imagination are the two univer- 
sally-relating activities of the mind and their goal seems to 
be nothing less than to adapt man to the universe itself. 

Nothing has been the subject of greater dispute in modern 
thought than the place of these higher intellectual powers of 
man in his social life. The tendency of nineteenth century 
thought was to discount the part which reasoning and imagi- 
nation played in social evolution. It would seem tolerably 
clear that reflective thought, as the latest, phase of mind to 
develop fully and as something in its full development quite 
peculiar to man, could not have much to do with the most 
primitive social origins. Such origins must be sought mainly 
in human instincts, in the “trial and error” method of adapta- 
tion, and in resulting habits. Neither has reason nor imagina- 
tion much to do with sustaining social institutions and organ- 
izations after they have become established ; for that is largely 
a matter of habit. Nevertheless, man’s higher intellectual 
powers have entered into social life increasingly as humanity 
has outgrown or found insufficient the trial and error method 


be 5 
a 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 103 


of adaptation; and it is these higher intellectual powers which 
from the first have given human society its distinct and 
peculiar traits. Let us see what are these peculiar traits of 
human society which owe their origin to man’s higher 
intellectual development. 

1. The first outcome of the distinctively human brain with 
its power of abstraction was language or articulate speech. 
By means of language, patterns of action in the mind could 
be symbolized and communicated. ‘Mental patterns” thus 
became “social patterns.” Thus a group tradition could be 
formed by means of which each generation could hand down 
to its successors its knowledge, ideas, standards, and values. 
Thus language, in becoming the vehicle of social tradition, 
reacted to further the intellectual development of man. It 
became a social means for storing up knowledge, thought, 
beliefs, mental patterns, and social stimuli of every sort. In 
fact the spoken word, or articulate speech, became the primary 
device which made cultural evolution possible; and let us 
not forget that every spoken word presupposes mental 
abstraction. » 

2. Inventions and discoveries of all sorts are products of 
man’s imagination and reasoning. The simplest stone tool, 
anthropologists tell us, was made with a mental pattern in 
mind. There is no evidence that invention and discovery, 
in the strict sense, that is, in the sense of putting things 
together mentally into new relationships, exist below man. 
Invention and discovery in this sense involve the making of 
hypotheses and testing of hypotheses; that is, they depend 
upon constructive imagination and reasoning. The simplest 
inventions and discoveries were doubtless often accidental; 
but man’s rational perception of relationships led to his 
utilization of the patterns suggested by nature or accident. 
In other words, every new invention is a new idea, a new 
mental pattern, which is a result of imagination and reasoning. 
Now invention and discovery have been the means by which 


ro4 PSYCHOLOGY OR (HUMAN SOCIETY 


man has slowly conquered the forces of nature and harnessed 
them to his use. Through invention man has learned to make 
and use tools, from the simplest stone tool to the modern 
airplane. The making of tools, along with the scientific 
discovery of the property and nature of things, has given 
man his material culture. But invention and discovery should 
not be confined to new combinations or utilizations of physical 
forces ; for new social arrangements, new forms of group life, 
may be equally products of imagination and reasoning. 
Hence, social and moral development in human society has 
depended very largely upon these higher intellectual processes. 
Moral ideas and ideals are as much mental patterns as are 
the patterns for physical tools, and depend quite as much upon 
the rational element in man’s mind. 

3. We may sum up by saying that culture itself is essen- 
tially the creation of man’s imagination and reasoning. Cul- 
ture is not simply acquired habits, but habits acquired through 
higher intelligence. Not only language, tool making, inven- 
tion, and discovery depended upon man’s higher intelligence, 
but also such regulative institutions of human society as those 
associated with government, religion, morality, and education. 
That is the reason why we do not find these below the human 
level. In art and science human imagination and reasoning 
especially manifest themselves; but we now see that some 
degree of art and science enters into all human achievements, 
from the making of the simplest stone tools to the highest 
forms of religion and morality. All of the achievements of 
man, all man’s mastery over nature and self, are products of 
his reasoning and imagination. On the spiritual as well as on 
the material side civilization is the creation of man’s higher 
intelligence. 

4. Progress, or new and higher adjustments in social life, 
is, accordingly, largely the work of imagination and reasoning. 
Individuals of exceptional intelligence are the producers of 
the new inventions and discoveries which have enabled man 





GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 105 


increasingly to master nature and to control his own behavior. 
Even among savages higher intellectual ability is one of the 
things which count most in social leadership. In part, the 
genius or man of great intellectual ability is doubtless a 
product of biological variation. Yet his work is distinctly 
the intellectual one of producing new “pattern ideas” which 
his group finds useful in mastering nature on the one hand 
or human nature on the other. Thus we may justly regard 
the higher intelligence as the active agent in social progress. 
Progress may not be maintained without the codperation of 
other elements in human nature, such as the feeling and the 
will, but it is intelligence which leads the way. 

Hence we have a right to believe that through the rational- 
ization of knowledge, that is, through science, man will be 
enabled more and more to master nature and to control his 
own behavior. We are justified from the past history of 
mankind in relying upon intelligence and reason for the mas- 
tery of forces both without and within us. Increasingly 
human adjustments have been made and perfected upon the 
basis of rationalized knowledge, that is, upon the basis of 
science. In proportion as we build our social life intelligently 
upon ascertained facts and laws, we shall be successful in our 
human living together; while in proportion as we build upon 
blind tradition, mere emotions, or prejudices, we shall fail. 
Only in the development and maintenance of the rational level 
of behavior lies the safety and security of civilization. 
Whether for individuals or for groups, the reason must be the 
ultimate guide of life, and it offers the only secure basis for 
continued human progress. 


The Complexity and Modifiability of Human Behavior ** 


Thus we see that human behavior is very complex, and 
shows upon analysis within itself a number of stages of 





41See Herrick, Neurological Foundations of Animal Behavior, 
Chaps. XIX, XX, for the biological basis of modifiable behavior, 


106 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


development. There are, however, in human nature no 
such divisions as the psychological analysis which we have 
just made might lead the student to suppose. Such divisions 
must be thought of as different aspects of the living, func- 
tioning organism, rather than as entirely different processes. 
Impulse, habit, and adaptation are but the more objective sides 
of the same processes which express themselves on the 
subjective or conscious side as feeling and intelligence. 

Moreover, these different aspects or levels of behavior are 
not clearly separable in the behavior of the adult individual. 
They not only overlap, but blend. Thus every act of an adult 
individual is compounded out of several of these aspects of 
behavior, and usually out of all of them. It is impossible to 
isolate a purely ‘instinctive or purely intelligent act. 
Ordinary human behavior, as we find it in human society, is 
an indefinite compound of instinct, habit, feeling, and intelh- 
gence. We say “indefinite,” because, of course, the amount 
of instinct, habit, feeling, or intelligence may vary. Our 
ideal is that our actions shall be dominated by our higher 
intelligence, by rationality; but the most intelligent act may 
have in it some element of animal impulse or hereditary 
reaction. Nevertheless, this analysis helps us to under- 
stand behavior because it separates it into its constituent 
elements, and this makes it easier to control behavior as a 
whole. In given circumstances we will know better what 
elements need attention. 

It is also a mistake to think that these elements of behavior 
have no independence whatsoever of each other. Each of 
the levels of mental evolution seems to have been developed 
for some purpose or to meet some need in the adaptive 
process. Hence it is possible to order and arrange the ele- 
ments of behavior and frequently to play one element off 
against another. It is in this way that we gain control over 
human nature. We use habit, for example, to modify 
vriginal impulses, and we use intelligence to modify both. 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 107 


In civilized man there can be no doubt that we find intelli- 
gence not infrequently in opposition to impulse, habit, and 
feeling. Intelligence seems to have a function of its own 
over and above impulse, habit, or feeling. Especially is 
it true that civilized man depends less and less upon instinct, 
habit, and feeling and more and more upon intelligence. This 
does not mean that we can or should get rid of the lower 
levels of behavior. It only means that they need to be fused 
with and dominated by the highest intelligence. 

This is not an impracticable ideal. Both modern psychology 
and modern sociology have united in showing the modifiability 
of human behavior. Experience, psychology shows, continu- 
ally results in the modification of human behavior. The 
studies of anthropologists and sociologists among all the 
peoples of the world, moreover, show human behavior to 
be one of the most modifiable things we know. Thus we 
find a great variety of forms of the family, of industry, of 
government, and of other social institutions among the 
different peoples. Apparently in every case these different 
forms of social behavior are due to the different social 
traditions and customs, the different social patterns, of the 
groups in which they are found. Man is far more of a 
cultural being in his behavior than a product of organic 
evolvtion or original nature. He learns through experience, 
and as he learns he changes or modifies his action patterns. 

It follows that the social behavior of men and the insti- 
tutions of human society are plastic and modifiable. They 
are the result not so much of innate or biological traits, 
plus the pressure of the physical environment, as of the 
mental patterns in the tradition and in the minds of the 
members of the group. To be sure, biological conditions, 
or innate tendencies, and conditions in the physical environ- 
‘ment very greatly affect these mental patterns; but many 
other conditions also affect them, such as the ignorance or 
knowledge of the group, its experience of good or bad 


108 PSYCHOLOGY | OF (HUMAN) SOCIETY 


fortune in the past, and the like. The source of these mental 
patterns, which become social patterns by being embodied 
in the social tradition, is hence to be sought in the total expe- 
rience of group life. Thus the element of intelligence in 
them, and so in human behavior, may vary with the knowl- 
edge and intelligence possessed by the individuals of the 
group. When the opinions and beliefs of individuals are 
scientifically correct we may reasonably expect socially better 
human behavior. It is, therefore, not too much to say that 
the scientific study of human life shows the possibility of 
remaking both human nature and human society. 


The Social Character of Human Behavior, Feeling, and 

Thinking 

We have seen that the mind of the individual has been 
evolved very largely as a social instrument, an instrument 
of adjustment in group life. So far as we can judge, this 
has been the history of mind from its very beginning. As 
we have seen, life has been group life because of biological 
necessities from the beginning. Individual behavior has been 
conditioned by a social situation through the whole history 
of its development. All the different elements or aspects of 
mind have been used to adjust individuals to their group and 
to their species from the start. The psychic elements of 
life, as far back as we can go in mental evolution, are a 
chief means of binding individuals of the same group or 
species together. The conclusion of social psychology is that 
the mind of man—that is, the complex of thoughts, feelings, 
desires, and impulses which we actually find in human beings 
—is very largely a product of social conditions. ‘This is true 
even of the instincts and emotions ‘with which we are 
equipped by heredity. Any study of these shows that they 
presuppose a social medium for their evolution. The instincts, 
emotions, and sensations of one individual often seem made 
to fit into corresponding processes in other individuals, and 





GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 10g 


so to bind all together in a larger unity. Hence even these 
hereditary aspects of mind and behavior are socially 
conditioned. 

It is even clearer that our acquired habits of behavior, 
feeling, and thinking come largely from our group life. 
Through imitation and social pressure we get the vast 
majority of our habits. From the culture of our group we 
get not only our knowledge, our beliefs, our ideals, standards, 
and values, but even our precepts and our concepts, in the 
strict sense of those terms. We could scarcely know the 
meaning of the simplest object, at least not its cultural 
meaning, unless we shared in the culture of our group. 
Concepts, or abstract ideas, are also social in character; they 
denote or represent objects common to all members of the 
group. These very concepts, we have seen, have been trans- 
mitted and developed through language. The most abstract 
thought is carried on by means of concepts or words, and it 
is largely in the nature of imaginary conversation. It, there- 
fore, presupposes social life. 

In a word, mind has been developed through the interaction 
of mind with mind in the carrying on and controlling of group 
life-processes. The mind has been used as a link between 
different members of the same group since mental life 
appeared. Mental life, therefore, belongs quite as much to 
the group as to the individual.*? Intercommunication is as 
necessary for the development of the mind of the individual 
as for the control of group life. If mental processes in 
the individual function to control individual behavior, it is not 
less true that intermental processes among the individuals of 
a group, such as suggestion, sympathy, imitation, and com- 
munication, function to control group behavior. If the mind 





42 Very rightly Professor Cooley made the fact that mind has 
two manifestations, one in individual life and the other in social 
life, both being aspects of the same process, one of the corner- 
stones of sociology. See Social Organization, Chap. I. . 


Tro.» PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


is the chief organ of adaptation for the individual, then these 
forms of mental interstimulation and response are the means 
of adjustment between individuals and so the means of 
adjustment of group behavior. We may regard these forms 
of mental interstimulation and response as instruments for 
the mutual adaptation of individuals who carry on common 
activities. But they are also the means for the development 
of the individual mind. Hence the individual and society 
develop together. The individual mind gets its development 
largely by participating in a group life, while the life of the 
group is carried on by mental interstimulation and response, 
chiefly in the form of intercommunication among its mem- 
bers. Therefore, man’s mental and social life grow together 
and are largely one. 

There is only one scientific conclusion which can be reached 
from these facts, and that is that the individual as we know 
him has been developed as a part of a larger life-process; in 
other words, is largely a social product. Hence, as we have 
already said, a scientific basis for philosophical individualism 
does not exist. This does not mean, however, that the indi- 
vidual’s mental life is wholly submerged in that of his group. 
Biological variation alone would prevent this. The active 
character of the individual mind also militates against this 
view. Consequently, we must avoid the error of the complete 
social determinism of individual consciousness and of indi- 
vidual behavior. So far as science can discover, there is no 
such determinism. The individual develops variations of his 
own both physically and mentally. If this were not so, 
progress would be impossible in human society, except through 
the action of natural selection upon groups. But the facts 
seem to show that most changes in human society start 
with the variations, originalities, and inventions of the indi- 
vidual.** While these are socially conditioned, they are also 


43 We would, however, agree with Bartlett (Psychology and Prim- 
itive Culture, p. 11) that “the attempt to find the beginning of social 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 111 


conditioned by the nature of the individual. As we have 
seen, if they are found socially useful, they may be taken 
up by the group, diffused by means of suggestion, imitation, 
and communication, and hence learned by all the members 
of the group. Thus the individual is a factor in the group 
life and may change the culture and the behavior of his 
group. 

Individual determinism is, however, as impossible as social 
determinism in any scientific explanation of human behavior. 
Since individuals form a mutual environment for each other, 
the form of their association, their group organization, and 
their culture are quite as influential in determining behavior 
as internal factors within the individual. Indeed, under 
ordinary conditions they are the most important element in 
the determination of individual as well as of group behavior. 
It is, however, the creative individual who usually initiates 
changes in the form and organization, culture and behavior, 
of groups. Thus we see again that the individual and society 
are correlatives and that neither can be understood apart from 
the other. 


The Active Factors in Association 


In the past there has been much discussion among sociolo- 
gists as to the “social forces.” Thus it has been said by 
some that the “desires” or “wishes” are the social forces; 
others have spoken of the “interests” as the social forces. 
We have tried to show that the active factors, or “forces,” 
at work in human social relationships consist not simply of 
compounds of feeling, such as desires, wishes, and interests, 
but also of all the impulses and intellectual elements which 
enter into the mental life of the individual. In other words, 





customs and institutions in purely individual experience is essentially 
a mistaken one.” ‘The reality, as Bartlett points out, is never the 
individual pure and simple, but always “the individual-in-a-given- 
social-group.” 


112 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN): SOCIETY 


we have tried to show that the whole mind, in all of its 
aspects, 1s active in our social life. Among social psycholo- 
gists there has been a tendency to recognize only the “psychic 
factors” as true social forces, and even among these only the 
acquired psychic traits which are the result of cultural evolu- 
tion, since these latter alone can be considered as having 
originated within human society.** 

Now the more advanced sciences no longer raise the ques- 
tion of “forces”; they content themselves simply with ana- 
lyzing elements in the situation.*® The question is not how 
these elements originate, but how they work in a given situa- 
tion, and how our understanding of their. working helps us 
to explain that situation. In the psychology of human society 
our question would be, then, what factors do we have to take 
into account in explaining psychologically the social life of 
mankind? As soon as we put this question and take the 
evolutionary point of view, we see that physical and biological 
factors cannot be left out of account. They also are factors 
or elements which are necessary to explain every social 
situation. Indeed, over long stretches of time, the biological 
factors of heredity, variation, and selection and the geographi- 
cal factors of climate, food, and soil seem to be the significant 
factors. At any given moment, however, the influence of 
these physical factors on social behavior is through the 
impulses, feelings, and ideas of individuals; for it is only 
through these psychic elements, as we have seen, that any 
kind of social life is maintained. Hence, in interpreting 
definite group behavior the psychological sociologist may 
rightly emphasize the psychic processes which we have studied 
in this chapter, provided he keeps in the background the 


44 See Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chap. VII, for an elaborate discussion of the notion of “social 
forces.” 

45 Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 149: “Science and 
invention did not get on as long as men indulged in the notion of 
special forces to account for phenomena.” 





GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 113 


geographical and biological factors which continually condi- 
tion and modify the action of socio-psychic processes. 

We may conveniently divide the factors of human asso- 
ciation into original and derived. The original factors are 
those furnished by physical nature and original human nature. 
The derived factors are compounded out of the simple, 
original factors and many of them are products of human 
culture. As original social forces or active factors in human 
association we must recognize the following: 


1. The Physical Factors 
(a) Geographic: environment, including climate, food, nat- 
ural resources, topography, etc. 
(b) Biological factors, as heredity, variation, selection, etc. 
2. The Psychical Factors 
(a) Impulses, both hereditary (instinctive) and acquired 
(habitual ) .*6 
(b) Feelings, both hereditary (emotions) and acquired 
(habitual). 
(c) Intellectual elements, including sensation, perception, 
and ideation (conception, imagination, reasoning, etc.). 


Derivative social forces or factors in association are those 
compounded out of these original elements. They are very 
numerous and have never been satisfactorily listed or classi- 
fied. They include, for example, the desires and wishes of 
individuals, compounded mainly out of feelings and impulses; 
the sentiments, which are enduring attitudes built up mainly 
out of feelings and impulses; the interests and values, which 
are compounds built up out of feelings, impulses, and intel- 
lectual elements. All of these supply normally the motives 
for the reflective activities of civilized men. Hence they all 
modify and condition the expression of the original psychic 





46 Professor Dewey, as we have seen, would use the word “impulses” 
as synonymous with “instincts” or “native impulses,” but it is certain 
that many impulses are acquired, or, in other words, that all habits 
express themselves in appropriate impulses. This, Dewey virtually 
acknowledges. 


1I4 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


factors of impulse, feeling, and intellect, just as the physical 
factors also modify and condition them. 

The social values and interests have often been classified. 
Perhaps as convenient a classification as any is the six-fold 
classification proposed by Professor Small as follows: 

(1) Health interests; (2) wealth or economic interests; 
(3) political and social interests; (4) intellectual or scientific 
interests; (5) esthetic interests; (6) moral and religious 
interests. These have been summed up in the six words: 
health, wealth, sociability, knowledge, beauty, and rightness. 
They indicate roughly the main activities and pursuits of 
human groups, and something like this classification is a 
practical necessity when we discuss the activities and insti- 
tutions of human society. The classification is sociological 
rather than psychological. 

The technic or technological factors affecting human asso- 
ciation are among the most important influences at work on 
the behavior of civilized men. They are the tools, machines, 
houses, roads, and all other modifications of the physical 
environment produced by human culture. They create a new, 
artificial, physical environment for man which largely replaces 
the natural, geographic environment. They may be regarded 
as modifications of the geographic environment created by 
human intelligence. This technological environment modifies 
and conditions all human behavior, especially at present, 
because it furnishes many of the most potent stimuli and 
most difficult problems for the social behavior of modern 
men. 

But there are also other cultural and institutiona, complexes 
in human society which furnish potent stimuli and problems 
for social behavior, and which must accordingly be reckoned 
with as “forces” or “factors” in social situations. Such are 
the institutions associated with government, religion, morality, 
art, and education. Some would say that these complexes 
of institutional stimuli are the chief factors to which we must 


GROUP LIFE AND MENTAL EVOLUTION 115 


pay attention in explaining human social behavior. At any 
rate, they will frequently concern us in our discussion of 
group life. In succeeding chapters we shall take up and 
discuss at length some of the more important psychological 
factors, whether original or derived, which enter into and 
affect our present social life. The place of these psychologi- 
cal categories in the sociological categories which we shall 
examine in the next five chapters will become evident. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Bauz, The Basts of Social Theory, Chaps. II-V. 

ANGELL, Psychology, Chaps. II, III. 

Baciey, Educational Values, Chaps. I-V. 

Baupwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Devel- 
opment, Chaps. I-VIII. 

Bartiett, Psychology and Primitive Culture, Chaps. I, II. 

BERNARD, Instinct, A Study in Social Psychology, Chaps. I, 
Tilt 

Bocarpbus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Part I. 

Corvin, The Learning Process, Chaps. I-IV. 

Cootey, Human Nature and the Social Order, Chaps. I, III. 

Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, Parts I-III. 

EpMAN, Human Traits and Their Social Significance, Chaps. 
I-XI. 

FoiuettT, Creative Experience, Chaps. III-V. 

GauwttT, Social Psychology, Chap. III. 

GinsBERG, The Psychology of Society, Chaps. I-III. 

Groves, Personality and Social Adjustment, Chaps. II-X. 

Herrick, Neurological Foundations of Animal Behavior, Chaps. 
XIX, XX. 

HosnHouse, Development and Purpose, Chaps. I-III; The Ra- 
tional Good, Chaps. I-III; Mind in Evolution, Revised 
Edition, Chaps. I-VI. 

Hocxinc, Human Nature and Its Remaking, Part II. 

James, The Principles of Psychology. 

Jastrow, Character and Temperament. 

-Jennincs, Behavior of the Lower Organisms, Chaps. XIII- 
XXI. 

Jupp, Psycholegy. 


116 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


McDovueatt, Outline of Psychology, Chaps. V-VII; Introduc- 
tion to Social Psychology, Chaps. II-IX. 

Mever, The Psychology of the Other One. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chap, +11. | 

PARMELEE, The Science of Human Behavior, Chaps. V-XIV. 

Piitussury, The Fundamentals of Psychology. 

Piatt, The Psychology of the Social Life. 

Pye, Outlines of Educational Psychology; The Psychology of 
Learning. 

Ross, Social Psychology, Chap. II. 

SHAND, The Foundations of Character. 

SMALL, General Sociology, Chaps. XIV, XXXI, XXXII. 

TITCHENER, Textbook of Psychology. 

THORNDIKE, Elements of Psychology, Part III; Animal Intel- 
ligence, Chaps. I, Il; The Original Nature of Man, Chaps. 
I-XI. 

Tozzer, Social Origins and Social Continuities, Chap. II. 

Watson, Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, 
Chaps. I, II, IV-X. . 

WiuiaMs, Principles of Social Psychology, Bk. I. 

WoopwortH, Psychology, Chaps. III-IX, XII, XIII, XIX-XXI; 
Dynamic Psychology, Chaps. II-VI. 

ZNANIECKI, The Laws of Social Psychology. 


CHAPTER IV 
PRIMARY GROUP LIFE—THE FORMS OF HUMAN ASSOCIATION 


SoME sort of enumeration, description, and comparison of 
the different kinds of social groups is manifestly one of the 
first things to be considered in sociology and social psychol- 
ogy. Not only is the form, or the type of organization, of 
social groups interesting, but it is highly important for 
understandmg the life and behavior of the ‘group. The 
different kinds of social groups, however, seem so manifold 
that it would appear to be next to impossible to enumerate 
and classify them. Even this preliminary work of sociological 
science is not yet complete, but sociologists have succeeded 
in bringing about a few simple classifications which have 
enabled us to see more deeply into the nature of group life. 
The principal types of human association have already been 
described, classified, and compared. In as much as it is the 
form of the associational process in groups which we wish to 
emphasize, we shall call the different kinds of social groups 
“forms of association.” 


Forms of Association 


We have already mentioned among the forms of human 
association or types of human groups, natural genetic groups, 
which we have called “communities,” ? and also “primary 
groups.” We have not distinguished between these two, 
as some communities are primary groups. If a community 
is any group which carries on all phases of a common life, 
it must be a natural genetic group. Individuals are born 


1See definition in Chap. I; also MacIver, Community (third 
edition), pp. 22, 23. 
117 


8). PSYCHOLOGY OR HUMAN SOCIETY 


into it and hence membership in it is more or less involuntary. 
Hence such groups are sometimes called involuntary groups.’ 
They include all sorts of natural groups, such as the family, 
the neighborhood group, kinship groups, cities, states, and 
nations. Because communities are natural, nonspecialized 
groups, embracing all phases of life, they are of more in- 
terest to students of group behavior than the more or less 
artificial and specialized groups. They are more stable, as a 
rule, as well as more all-embracing. The student should 
note that such groups are found in animal as well as in human 
association. Indeed, they are the only permanent groups 
which are found below the human level. 

In contrast with these natural, genetic groups we must 
place the voluntary, purposive groups which we find in human 
society.* These are associations of persons formed for special 
purposes. They are sometimes called “interest groups.” 
Such are political parties, religious sects, trade unions, indus- 
trial corporations, cultural associations, and the like. Some- 
times these specialized, purposive groups include in their 
membership only one sex, one age class, or one economic 
class. Modern civilization is characterized by the great 
growth of these specialized forms of human association. As 
such groups are not found below the human level, they must 
be considered as products of human culture. While, there- 
fore, they are very important for understanding the later 
phases of social and cultural evolution, they are not so 
important for understanding fundamental factors in human 
social life. 

More important still for sociological purposes is the dis- 
tinction between primary and secondary groups. Primary 
groups are those which involve more or less face-to-face, 


2 Professor Giddings has called these “component societies.” See 
Descriptive and Historical Sociology, Part III, Chap. II. 

3 Giddings calls these “constituent societies,’ of. cit., Part III, 
Chap. III. 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 119 


intimate, direct personal relations. In a word, they involve 
personal presence and personal acquaintance. Such groups 
are the family, the neighborhood, play or recreation groups, 
groups of friends, some crowds, and the like. We have 
every reason to believe that these groups are primitive. For 
thousands of generations men knew no other form of asso- 
ciation than these face-to-face groups. But the main reason 
for calling these groups “primary” is that psychologically 
the stimulus of the presence of other individuals is necessary 
for the development of any social life whatsoever. Out of 
primary groups have sprung all the other forms of associa- 
tion. Groups which did not involve the association of 
personal presence, obviously, could not be formed until there 
had been a relatively high development of face-to-face groups. 
It will be noted that only primary groups, so far as we know, 
exist among the animals below man. Primary groups were 
the original form of social life. 

Secondary groups are those which do not necessarily 
involve face-to-face association or intimate, direct, personal 
relations. These groups have become so important in human 
society that some, like the state and the nation, have actually 
been confused with human society itself. Yet secondary 
groups are all the result of human culture and could not 
even exist without considerable cultural equipment on the 
part of man. They probably did not begin to exist until the 
stage of barbarism was reached, or not more than twenty 
thousand years ago. Yet such groups as cities, provinces, 
states, and nations, on the one hand, and political parties, 
religious sects, and great industrial corporations, on the other, 
are not only obviously important for understanding the 
social life of our present human world, but their control 
has become one of the main problems of our civilization. 
‘We can best understand these secondary groups, however, 
by approaching them through the study of the primary group. 
The student should not fail to note that the classification of 


120 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN, SOCIETY 


groups into primary and secondary cuts across the classifica- 
tion of groups as involuntary and voluntary. 

Another very important distinction for sociological pur- 
poses among the forms of human association is that between 
the institutional and noninstitutional. As we have seen, those 
groupings and relations of individuals which have been 
reflected upon, sanctioned, and established, or “instituted,” 
by the authority of communities, we call “institutions.” * Such 
are the family, property, the state, the church, and the 
school. As institutions are dependent upon reflective thought, 
intercommunication, and the organization of authority, they 
are not found, in the strict sense, below the human level. 
Their importance in human social life is indicated by the fact 
that they have been reflected upon, sanctioned, and established 
by human communities. They embody the chief, consciously 
recognized values in the social life. 

In spite of the tendency of civilization to “institutionalize” 
all the more important groups and relations in human society, 
there are still many noninstitutional groups and relations. 
Such, for example, are the temporary groups that are con- 
stantly forming and dissolving, as crowds, mobs, play groups, 
or groups of friends. Indeed, many of the everyday relations 
of life of individuals with one another are still noninstitu- 
tional.’ The neighborhood group, for example, although a 
permanent group, can scarcely be said to be institutionalized. 
These unreflective, noninstitutionalized forms of association 
of human beings retain great interest for the social psycholo- 
gist, because in them we may frequently discern the original, 





4Compare again Maclver, Community, Bk. II, Chap. IV. Sum- 
ner says (Folkways, p. 53): “An institution consists of a concept 
and a stsucture. ... The structure holds the concept and furnishes 
instrumentalities for bringing it into the world of facts and action 
in a way to serve the interests of men in society.” 

5 This is, of course, the chief reason why the concepts of “insti- 
tution” and “the institutional” cannot be taken as defining the limits 
of sociology. 





PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 121 


unreflective tendencies of human nature more clearly than in 
the institutional groups, which necessarily take on an artificial 
character, as a result not only of reflection but of social 
coercion. However, institutional stimuli have become so 
important for the understanding of human behavior that our 
chief attention will have to be paid to institutional groups 
and relations. 

The distinction between temporary and permanent groups 
is not so important, as the temporary groups are usually 
found within larger permanent groups. However, even here 
certain distinctions, in the type of behavior may be noted. 
Evidently the permanent group is more important for under- 
standing human collective life as a whole than the temporary 
group; so also, the involuntary than the voluntary, the institu- 
tional than the noninstitutional, the primary than the 
secondary. Primary groups are especially important for 
the understanding of social behavior, since the original form 
of association was an association of personal presence. We 
shall, accordingly, begin with the study of primary groups. 


The Social Function of Primary Groups? 


In general, primary groups are the makers of the primary 
social attitudes of individuals. There are three main ways 
in which they influence social behavior : 

1. They socialize the individual. Psychologically, the 
stimulus of the presence of other individuals is necessary for 
the development of the instincts, habits, feelings, ideas, and 
values, in brief, the attitudes which enter into and make the 





6 Professor H. A. Miller (Races, Nations, and Classes, Chap. IT) 
suggests as very important for understanding modern social structure 
“vertical groups” and “horizontal groups.” Vertical groups include 
ali classes, horizontal groups are only in one class or caste. Many 
other classifications of groups might be suggested. Many other 
classes and types of social groups can, of course, be made out. See 
p. 138 of this chapter. 

7 See Cooley, Social Organization, Chaps. III-V. 


122 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


social character of the individual. In face-to-face association 
social life is most vividly realized. The social impulses and 
attitudes connected with sex, with parenthood, with kinship, 
are incapable of normal development, so far as we know, 
without the stimulus of personal presence. Habits of tolera- 
tion and codperation get their start in such intimate relations. 
Here come the first lessons in mutual aid, sympathy, and 
understanding. Sympathy and understanding could scarcely 
develop between individuals without personal acquaintance, 
yet these are the very core of the social nature of the indi- 
vidual. In brief, the we-feeling in a group has its origin in 
the experiences of individuals in small, face-to-face groups. 
It is in such groups that individuals develop their capacity 
and will to act together. In them, as we have said, they 
learn their “primary social attitudes’ and their “primary 
social values.” Professor Cooley has argued that the sense 
of social solidarity comes from the unity experienced in these 
small primary groups, and that primary group life is the 
creator of our valuation of social or moral unity. He has 
contended, also, with some justice, that what we ordinarily 
call “human nature” is really acquired through experience in 
such groups. It is certain, at any rate, that in such groups 
the primary social traits of human nature receive their first 
development. 

2. Primary groups are the chief carriers of custom and 
tradition. They are the chief carriers of custom and tradition 
because they furnish the main environment of the child from 
his earliest years. In the family and in the neighborhood the 
child learns his language and, in learning it, he gets with it 
the fundamental knowledge, beliefs, and values contained in 
the tradition of his civilization. The family group from its 
very nature is, above all other human groups, fitted to trans- 
mit from generation to generation definite habits, or customs, 
and definite ideas and values, or traditions. The prolonged 
immaturity of the child is spent largely within the family. 





PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 123 


During this plastic period he has not only a natural tendency 
to imitate his elders, but pressure is brought to bear upon 
him if he does not. The organization and discipline of the 
family group is usually of the nature of a close, personal 
control over conduct and such as practically compels the child 
to acquire many of the habits, attitudes, and values of his 
parents. 

The neighborhood group is another group in which all the 
arrangements for human living are such as to favor the 
transmission of custom and tradition. Until very recently, 
tradition and custom reigned supreme in the neighborhood 
group; and very strong, compelling influences were brought 
to bear upon the individual to make him follow, in practically 
all things, the custom of the group. 

The family, the neighborhood, and the play group are 
practically the first school for the child. So much does the 
child get his central social traditions, social attitudes, and 
social values from these groups that there are not wanting 
educators who claim that social and moral education can 
never be given adequately in our public schools. There 
can be no doubt, at any rate, that all the essential social 
traditions of our life are preserved and passed along in the 
face-to-face association in primary groups. The meaning 
of essential traditions is clearer to the young when received 
in these groups, moreover, because they are usually accom- 
panied by actual appropriate behavior. The child, therefore, 
can get the meaning of a certain tradition regarding religion, 
morality, or government, for example, from the family life 
better than he can from the printed page or even from the 
spoken word in a public assembly. Probably he can get the 
meaning better, too, in the close and intimate relations in the 
family group than he can in the more partial and uncertain 
associations of the neighborhood or the play group. 

3. Primary groups are the source of primary social ideals. 
By this we mean that primary social ideals have originated 


124 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in the experiences in these groups. The ideals of love, service, 
self-sacrifice, and human brotherhood, for example, originated 
in the experiences of family life. The ideals of freedom, 
justice, and good citizenship originated largely in the expe- 
riences of neighborhood life; while the ideal of fair play 
manifestly came from the play group. These idealistic social 
attitudes have their source in the experiences of primary 
group life. As Professor Cooley says, “In these relations 
mankind realizes itself, gratifies its primary needs, in a fairly 
satisfactory manner, and from the experience forms stand- 
ards of what it is to expect from elaborate association.” 
Professor Cooley points out that the ideals of both Chris- 
tianity and democracy have sprung naturally from the 
experiences of primary group life. 

In other words, the origin of many of the social patterns 
which men set before themselves as the goals of social 
development is to be sought in the form and organization of 
primary groups. These primary groups give us our primary 
social attitudes and primary social values, not simply because 
they transmit the tradition of these, but also because by their 
very form and organization they naturally create, originate, 
these values and attitudes. This shows the great significance 
of primary groups for understanding the whole development 
of human society and of human culture. It may be said 
at this point that men have always had two divergent and 
broadly contrasting sets of patterns for social behavior: 
one which they have followed in the intimate social life 
within their primary groups, and another which they have 
followed in relationships with men outside these groups. 
Evidently one of the prime problems in the psychology of 
social behavior is whether the primary group attitudes and 
values can be carried out successfully in the wider relations 
of men. But before we can answer this question we must 
understand even more clearly the workings of these primary 
groups in socializing the individual, in transmitting custom 





PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 125 


and tradition, and in originating social attitudes, social values, 
and socal patterns. Let us consider then the processes of 
socialization, of the transmission of culture, and of the 
origination of social patterns. 


The Process of Socialization 


We mean by socialization the growth in individuals of 
the capacity and will to act together. Subjectively it is a 
growth of we-feeling in members of a group, or the develop- 
ment in them of social-mindedness. Professor Giddings 
finds that the process of socialization is a process wherein 
there is a growing consciousness of kind, an increasing 
like-mindedness, increasing sympathy and understanding, and 
increasing friendliness or affection among the members of 
a group.® It is obviously personal acquaintance and intimate 
association which brings about most effectively the develop- 
ment of these traits.° Sympathy and understanding, for 
example, are best promoted through personal acquaintance; 
yet upon sympathy and understanding depend largely the 
harmony of human association wherever it exists.‘° The 
socialization of the individual must evidently take place within 
one or more face-to-face groups before we can expect that 
it will be manifest in wider social relations. Yet upon 
socialization depends the whole harmony of human rela- 
tionships. According to Professor Giddings, it is the devel- 
opment of socialization which leads to cooperation and makes 
cooperation possible, especially in its higher forms. While 
cooperative behavior probably vastly preceded the inner, or 
subjective, process of socialization, yet it is true that the 
socialization of individual character does precede the develop- 





8 Giddings, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, pp. 304-312. 

®This is not to deny that imaginative acquaintance with persons 
through literature and art is a powerful stimulus in the development 
of the social character of the individual. 

10 For development of this thought, see Bogardus, Fundamentals 
of Social Psychology, Chap. XX. 


126 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ment of the higher forms of codperation among human 
beings. Codperation and socialization thus develop together 
in human society. Every advance in cooperation must have 
correspondingly socialized character in individuals to support 
it. Practically, therefore, cooperation in human groups 
depends upon the socialization of the individual character 
of their members. 

According to Professor Giddings, also, it is socialization 
which produces all rationally conscientious human behavior.*? 
It may seem at first that socialization with reference to very 
small groups could not have this result, because the social 
spirit of small groups is often very narrow. Yet individuals 
by participating in the life of such groups acquire the social 
consciousness (the consciousness of the group); and as the 
groups in which they act become larger, either in imagination 
or in actual experience, their social consciousness enlarges. 
If the socialization of the individual is only with reference 
to small groups, such socialization may work at cross-purposes 
with the interest of society at large. Nevertheless, it is 
through the experience in the primary groups that we become 
socialized in our attitudes toward larger or secondary groups. 
These larger groups are made real to us very largely through 
our social imagination. Those things to which we actually 
adjust ourselves in group life are always the images of our 
fellow men, our realization of the reality of their existence 
and of our relations with them. Hence our participation 
in the life of larger groups is made possible by our experience 
in the life of small, face-to-face groups. Hence, it is these 
groups which teach us to identify ourselves with our fellows 
and perhaps ultimately with humanity at large. Thus Gid- 
dings is right in holding that the process of socialization in 
its higher phases becomes a process of moralization. The 
highly socialized individual becomes marked by his sense 





11 Giddings, Elements of Sociology, Chap. VI. 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 127 


of responsibility for the welfare of his group. We say that 
he is socially conscious because he thinks not so much of 
himself as of his associates. He not only identifies himself 
with his group but he holds himself responsible for the 
welfare of all its members, so far as it lies within his power. 
If the group of which he thinks is the largest possible human 
group, humanity, then his behavior becomes not only social- 
‘ized in the highest sense but completely moralized. Hence 
the highly socialized individual, as Professor Giddings finds, 
is dependable and helpful in his social relations, mindful 
of the value of group usages, but also independent in thought, 
courageous, and willing to experiment, because he is mindful 
of the welfare of society as a whole. Hence his beliefs are 
subject to review and modification; he is tolerant and open- 
minded but insistent upon evidence, judiciously critical rather 
than faultfinding, inventive and creative. 

This process of the socialization of behavior must begin 
in the small, face-to-face groups of men. It is in these groups 
that the individual first learns to imitate others, or to do as 
others do; first learns to sympathize, or to feel as others 
feel; receives his first suggestions from associates, and learns 
to think with them. In other words, in these groups the 
individual first participates in social consciousness and is 
first subject to social control. Throughout life, moreover, 
the social control and social coercion to which the individual 
is subject is stronger in the face-to-face groups than in the 
non-face-to-face. Codperation and all the primary social 
attitudes are learned in these groups. We may confidently 
say, therefore, that the primary groups must always remain 
the chief means of socializing the behavior and character of 
individuals, and that, consequently, the tone of larger, 
secondary groups will always depend upon the tone of 
primary group life. It has been well said that “the finer 





12 Giddings, Studies in the Theory of Human Society, p. 287. 


128 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


standards of conduct in large social groups, in industry and 
politics, will wait upon the growth of virtue in face-to-face 
intercourse.” 14 

The whole complex system of existing human association 
and institutions, from one point of view, may be interpreted 
as so many devices for socializing the character and behavior 
of individuals. Government, education, moral ideals, and 
religion manifestly aim to cultivate attitudes and values in 
individuals which will socialize them with reference to certain 
groups, large or small. Hence we shall have more to do 
with the theory of the socialization and social control of the 
individual throughout our study. But it is important to note 
that the vital part of the process of socialization has always 
taken place and must continue to take place in face-to-face 
groups. 


The Transmission of Culture 


Culture, as we have seen, is a psycho-social product. It 
requires for its transmission, therefore, a psycho-social 
medium or environment. The face-to-face groups of men 
provide such an environment. The intercommunication 
within these groups sets before the individual, in the form of 
tradition, the social patterns received from the past. Spoken 
language conveys from individual to individual the patterns 
of behavior and the social values attached to these patterns. 
Objectively, the patterns of social behavior are placed before 
the individual in face-to-face groups by the behavior of other 
individuals. Suggestion and imitation are much more com- 
pelling than in non-face-to-tace association. Thus in primary 
groups communication and example transmit tradition and 
custom, which together form the substance of culture, with 
the least change.. Hence primary group life furnishes the 
indispensable medium for the transmission of culture with 





18 Findlay, An Introduction to Sociology, p. 140. 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 129 


the least loss. Of course, there exist many other agencies in 
civilized human society to aid in the transmission of culture. 
Such are especially schools, libraries, museums, and churches. 
But these are only aids to the primary groups in the trans- 
mission of culture. These and all special associations for 
cultural purposes can never play more than a secondary role 
in the transmission of culture, for it is in the primary group 
that the individual first participates in social consciousness 
and becomes a cultural being. It is obvious that if we wish 
to preserve a given culture or civilization we must see that 
our primary group life is kept in an efficient state for handing 
it down from one generation to another. 


The Origin of Social Patterns 


The origin of men’s ideals has always been a problem 
which has perplexed social thinkers. The earliest view was 
that the origin of ideals was to be sought in special, divine 
revelations. Later philosophers have claimed that moral 
ideals originate in the intuitions of the moral judgment. 
Whatever truth there may be in these views, it is certain, 
as Professor Cooley has shown, that our primary social ideals 
grow up through our experiences in primary group life. The 
experiences in primary group life when at its best, in other 
words, have suggested to men the pattern to be aimed at 
in social life. As Professor Cooley points out, the social 
patterns or ideals contained in both Christianity and democ- 
racy come from primary group life—those of Christianity 
largely from the family, those of democracy largely from the 
neighborhood. Men have taken the patterns experienced or 
suggested by these primary groups and tried to realize them 
in larger human relations. Our social ideals have, therefore, 
grown up in part from the experiences of primary group 
life. 

There are many other social patterns which have come 
from other sources. Thus occupations have furnished many 


130 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


social patterns. Original human nature also may have fur- 
nished others. Many of these patterns from the economic 
and instinctive sides of life have come into prominence in 
modern culture. Whether the patterns from primary group 
life should dominate in our social life as a whole is, as we 
have already said, the great practical problem before our 
civilization. The primary group attitudes involve so much 
personal acquaintance, understanding, and sympathy among 
men that it has been said that it is impossible to apply them 
in the larger groups of men. If this is psychologically true, 
the sooner it is understood the better. Cultural evolution, 
however, has undoubtedly tended toward the gradual exten- 
sion of the highly socialized patterns of behavior in primary 
groups to the total social life of humanity. Let us note the 
distinctive contribution of each of the three principal primary 
groups to our social ideals. 


The Contribution of the Family 


The family is a close, sympathetic group whose members 
are bound together by natural affection, by habit, and by 
biological necessities. In such a group mutual understanding, 
mutual sympathy, and mutual service must be highly devel- 
oped. Consequently there is a high valuation of the person- 
ality of each member of the group. This high valuation of 
persons as such, and devotion to their welfare, is what we 
mean by “love.” Hence the distinctive contribution of the 
family to our social ideals is undoubtedly that of altruism, 
or love, with its accompanying mutual service and mutual 
sacrifice. In the family group the natural egoism of the 
individual is first counteracted by the development of senti- 
ments of sympathy, loyalty, kindliness, and service to others. 
Thus the family group becomes the first medium in which 
social impulses and sentiments are evoked, social habits 
formed, and social consciousness awakened. Experience in 
family relations is, therefore, a step in the development of 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 131 


that wider altruism demanded by society at large. But while 
all the virtues have their beginning in the family, the life of 
any particular family group may be very narrow. It is only 
when family life at its best becomes a pattern, an ideal, for 
social relations between persons generally, that the contribu- 
tion of the family to social ideals becomes evident. A civiliza- 
tion which values persons as ends in themselves, which makes 
devotion to the welfare of persons the chief end of organized 
human society, would be following the family pattern. On 
the whole, the movement of civilization for the last few 
thousand years seems to have been in this direction. Our 
religion and morality have especially sanctioned this pattern. 


The Contribution of the Neighborhood 


The neighborhood is a less close-knit group than the family, 
but still one which requires toleration, free cooperation, and 
mutual service. In such a group the needs of a common life 
are best met by recognizing the substantial equality of its 
different units and by the cultivation of habits of discussion 
and of mutual aid. Independence goes along with voluntary 
cooperation. Sympathy, understanding, and friendliness are 
necessary, but coOperation and mutual aid are secured best 
upon the basis of the freedom and equality of its members. 
Hence the distinctive contribution of the neighborhood to 
our social ideals is undoubtedly that of codperation upon 
the basis of equality and freedom. The neighborhood, in 
other words, has been the medium for the birth of the 
democratic spirit. A civilization which patterns itself after 
the neighborhood would have to keep alive habits of discus- 
sion and of voluntary cooperation. It would emphasize the 
importance of freedom and equality among its constituent 
units. The development of Western civilization during the 
last few centuries has been, on the whole, in the direction of 
the neighborhood pattern, so that now we are beginning to 
think even of the world as a neighborhood. 


132 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


The Contribution of the Play Group 


Play and amusement have always been important phases of 
human social life. The play group, though voluntary, has 
perhaps done more than any other group, with the exception 
of the family and the neighborhood, to stimulate social 
impulses, form habits of social cooperation, and develop 
social consciousness. Through play and amusement the 
young have always received not only a considerable part of 
their physical and mental development, but also a large part 
of their social education; while from play and amusement 
adults get rest and refreshment. Hence play and recreation 
groups are very significant in human society. They perhaps 
become even more important in higher civilization than in 
the lower forms of culture, because the needs which they 
meet become greater in higher civilization. Their distinctive 
contribution to our social ideals is that of fair play, team- 
work, and social pleasure. Teamwork is necessary in many 
games and amusements, and habits of codperation are thus 
developed. ‘Team consciousness, or the consciousness of the 
unity of the play group, is developed. Loyalty and fair play 
are demanded. As play is an end in itself, social pleasure 
is another ideal which grows up. But play and amusement 
have another side. In play and recreation groups the appeal 
is to natural impulses. Hence there has always been a 
tendency in these groups, perhaps more than in any other 
form of group life, for the animal impulses of original 
human nature to bring about reversions in behavior to very 
low cultural levels. Consequently, the play group, like other 
groups, nay have a very narrow and narrowing life. But its 
chief values, those of fair play, teamwork, social pleasure, 
and recreation, are, and will doubtless continue to be, very 
important for our whole culture. Indeed, these seem to 
become more and more primary ideals in our culture. With 
the growth of wealth and leisure, the last few centuries 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 133 


especially have witnessed the tendency for the patterns of 
the play group to become increasingly general patterns for 
our social life. , 

The student will note that all these intimate, face-to-face 
groups presuppose and cultivate toleration, sympathy, under- 
standing, and kindliness among their members. This is so 
true that it is difficult to say what the distinctive contributions 
of each of the face-to-face groups to our social ideals have 
been. The general tendency of all is in the direction of 
sympathy, understanding, and mutual aid. It is only» when 
we go outside of these groups that we find the attitudes of 
suspicion, distrust, antipathy, hostility, and hate emphasized. 
It will be noted, therefore, that in general men throughout 
history have had two distinct sets of social patterns, one 
which they followed within their intimate groups, or within 
groups which by the exercise of imagination they had come 
to regard as intimate; the other which they followed with 
individuals outside of their face-to-face groups, or outside of 
groups which had come to be regarded as intimate. The first 
set of patterns were those of toleration, sympathy, kindliness, 
and mutual aid; the second set of patterns, followed with 
men outside of one’s group, are those of suspicion, distrust, 
hostility, and conflict. The historical reason for this is that 
human sociability was originally evolved in narrow, face-to- 
face groups. This has given rise to a dualism in the social 
patterns for individual conduct. This dualism has run thus 
far through human history, in spite of the fact that various 
systems of universal ethics, like Christianity, have proclaimed 
one universal social ideal, or pattern of conduct, in all human 
relations. The persistence of this dualism in conduct is 
doubtless in part due to the original constitution of the 
human mind, but it is also probably due in large measure to 
the persistence of two distinct social traditions or sets of 
social patterns. Whether this dualism can be overcome de- 
pends obviously upon whether sufficient social imagination 


134 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


can be developed in individuals to make them include 
imaginatively all men in their intimate groups. 


Secondary Groups 


Since the later stages of barbarism, the most striking 
feature of social evolution has been the development of 
large non-face-to-face groups, which we may call “secondary 
groups.” They create many of the problems of our civiliza- 
tion because for some of them we have as yet developed no 
adequate means of control. The state, or nation, is the chief 
of these secondary groups, though scarcely less important 
are economic classes and religious sects. The first two of 
these groups are the result of the rise of warfare and con- 
quest. The state, as we know it, is mainly an outcome of 
war; as are also economic classes. Through the conquest 
of one group by another political sovereignty was estab- 
lished and political organization developed.1* Through the 
same process economic classes, ranging from the status of 
the slave class to a class of nobility, were established. 
Religious sects, too, in part owed their universal nature 
indirectly to war, since they could scarcely have been estab- 
lished on a wide scale until the state came into being, and 
since everywhere their effort has been largely to harmonize 
the various conflicting elements in large secondary groups. 

Though secondary groups are relatively late in origin, there 
can be no question but that they have contributed much to 
the behavior pattern of modern men. The state, especially, 
has set up standards of loyalty, of law-abidingness, of 
obedience, and of service which have had the greatest influ- 
ence upon the behavior of civilized men. The autocratic or 
authoritarian state, especially, insisted upon all of its mem- 





14See Jenks, History of Politics, Chaps. VIII-X; also Oppen- 
heimer, The State: Its History and Development Viewed Socioiog- 
ically; also Beard, “The Evolution of Democracy” in Case’s Outlines 
of Introductory Sociology, pp. 539-544. 


%, 
% 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 135 


bers: following these standards of conduct in their relations 
with the governing class of the state. The modern democratic 
state has not found it possible to dispense with these stand- 
ards, as they are the obvious supports of every sort of 
political organization. The student should not fail to note 
that for the past four or five thousand years the state has 
been so ascendant that individuals more willingly sacrifice 
their lives for it than probably for any other group, with 
the possible exception of the family. 

Economic classes also have made a considerable contri- 
bution to the patterns for human behavior. This was mostly 
noticeable when there was a slave class and a master class; 
but even with the disappearance of these two extreme classes, 
the sense of class distinction and class difference is still 
strong in modern society. Moreover, we still have sur- 
viving among us traditions which come from the time when 
there was a slave class and a master class. Master-class 
attitudes and values, that is, a master-class ethics, are still 
strong in certain sections of modern society, while servile 
attitudes and values survive in other sections. This fact 
alone explains much about class behavior. The behavior 
of economic classes, in other words, is not so much a matter 
of human nature as of class tradition. Modern economic 
classes, however, rest largely upon occupation. Occupational 
interests and activities have also had much to do with influ- 
encing behavior patterns. The average man not infrequently 
shows a tendency to see the whole world through his occu- 
pation, and hence to form his ideals upon the basis of occu- 
pational habits. This matter has been so much enlarged upon 
by a number of social psychologists, that we need not discuss 
it in detail at this point, especially since we will have to return 
to the matter many times later. It is the overexaggeration 
of the influence of occupation upon social ideals which 
has given rise to one sort of “economic determinism.” 

Historically, the religious sect or denomination has usually 


136 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


been formed to propagate and conserve certain social ideals 
or behavior patterns. The great, universal religions, espe- 
cially, have had an incalculable influence upon human conduct. 
The earlier religions which aimed at something like univer- 
sality supported the pretensions of a master class or a 
conquering group. Such, in the main, seems to be the 
character of Brahmanism and Confucianism. Beginning with 
Buddhism and Christianity, however, we find universal 
religions which aim at the welfare of all and at the recon- 
ciliation and harmonization of social classes. Christianity, in 
particular, as we have already noted, has taken its patterns 
from the family and sought to impose them universally in 
human relations. As evidence of the influence of the religious 
sect, the student should not fail to note that next after the 
state and the family it has most often commanded the alle- 
giance of individuals even to the point of death. 

A typical, or rather hypertypical, secondary group of 
modern times is the great city. Here we see all the char- 
acteristics of secondary groups which distinguish them from 
primary groups emphasized. Instead of the close contacts 
and personal acquaintance which we find in primary groups, 
relationships tend to become impersonal and methods of 
communication very indirect. Thus in a great city very close 
neighbors are frequently not personally acquainted, and in 
spite of physical propinquity there is a tendency toward social 
isolation and loss of personal contacts. Under such conditions 
social relationships become cold and impersonal, and hence 
the sense of personal responsibility for one’s fellows may 
sink to a very low level. Consequently control is sought 
through impersonal organizations, such as the government 
and its various agencies. Neighborhood life suffers disin- 
tegration, and to some extent the family and the church also 
suffer. Whether or not all of these phenomena are necessary 
‘accompaniments of the development of secondary group life 
upon a vast scale, such as we find in a great city, is a question. 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 137 


It would seem that the renewal of family life and of neighbor- 
hood life within the great city might overcome some of these 
depersonalizing, unsocializing, and disintegrating tendencies. 
The instability of modern life has as one of its principal 
causes the growth of vast secondary groups, like the city, 
whose control we, as yet, only imperfectly understand. Dis- 
tinct means of control will doubtless have to be devised for 
them; but primary group life as essential social life will 
furnish us essential principles which may guide us in the 
solution of the perplexing problems connected with secondary 
groups. 


The Importance of the Form of Association, or the 
Type of a Social Group 


The form of organization of a social group affects the 
whole life of the group and of its members, because the way 
in which a group is organized determines largely the sort 
of stimulation which an individual will receive from his 
social relationships. The form of the association, or the 
type of social organization, affects, therefore, both the 
behavior of individuals and the efficiency of the group. We 
would not expect, for example, two individuals who associated 
as master and slave to develop the same sort of characters 
that they would if they associated as free men. Nor would 
we expect a group of slaves and masters to show the same 
sort of efficiency as a group of free men. Again, we would 
not expect a polygamous family to have the same effect upon 
the character of its members as a monogamous family, nor 
should we expect the two groups to show the same sort of 
efficiency. Finally, we do not expect an autocratic or authori- 
tarian state to develop the same character in its individual 
citizens as a democratic state, or the two states to show the 
same sort of efficiency. These examples are sufficient to show 
that the form of social organization is supremely important, 
both from the standpoint of its effect upon the personality 


138 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of individuals and from the standpoint of its effect upon group 
efficiency. We must not forget that individuals in groups 
form a mutual environment for one another, and that the 
nature of this environment depends in part upon the way 
in which the group is organized. Social organization forms 
a very important part of the culture of any group, and the 
knowledge of the forms of social organization has been quite 
as important as the knowledge of tool making. The whole 
history of human society has been, in one aspect, the history 
of testing out different forms of association or of social 
organization. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest practical 
tasks of social science must be to discover those forms of 
association, or of social organization, which are most likely 
to call forth the highest and best development of human 
personality. Hence, the theoretical and practical importance 
of studying the forms of association, or of social organization, 
and of getting some classification of these which will indicate 
their social value. We have already suggested several simple 
classifications which have been found helpful for social 
analysis. This work of classifying social groups according to 
the form of their organization is yet very incomplete, and 
perhaps never can be completed because of the developing 
character of social life. But some further classification may 
be helpful. 


Classification of the Forms of Association, or Types of 
Social Groups 


First of all, an evolutional classification of natural social 
groups, or “communities,” might be made according to the 
mechanism of social control within the group. Classifying 
groups upon this basis we find that the first or lowest form 
of association is the instinctive type, that in which the organ- 
ization of the group rests upon instincts and the correlated 
selective processes of the natural environment which pro- 
duced these instincts. Communities of this sort are wholly 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 139 


below the human level. As the basis of control over collective 
life in them is instinctive and hereditary, they show little 
social change, have no social progress, and achieve no very 
complex types of social adaptation. Such are the communi- 
ties formed by ants, bees, and many of the mammalia. 

The second form of association is the habitual or customary 
type, that in which the mechanism of control is chiefly in 
custom and tradition. All existing savage communities of 
mankind are of this type, and we have every reason to believe 
that it represents the early human social condition. As the 
basis of control over collective life in such communities is 
habit or custom, they are rarely progressive, or progress very 
slowly. Such human groups are usually very simple.in their 
organization and also small in the number of their individual 
members. In a certain sense, human groups, as we have 
seen, never escape the control of habit. Custom and tradi- 
tion play a large part even in the most progressive, civilized 
human groups. This is especially true in the third type of 
group which we are about to mention. Nevertheless, other 
elements enter into the higher forms of social organization, 
and become increasingly important as the basis of control 
becomes something more than mere custom and tradition. 

_ The third form of association is the authoritarian type, 
that in which the mechanism for control of the group life 
is chiefly despotic power, exercised by a small group of indi- 
viduals over a larger group. Communities of this authori- 
tarian type characterize the social life of barbarism and lower 
civilization, They are the result of a small group conquering 
a larger group and imposing its control upon the larger 
group. Such communities establish and maintain their unity 
through a fear-inspired obedience, which finally establishes 
habits of solidarity. This fear-inspired obedience may, of 
course, be religious as well as political in character, though 
such communities could hardly arise until the machinery of 
government had become established. Such authoritarian 


140 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


societies have been the most prominent type among national 
groups down to very recent times. 

Nevertheless, a fourth and higher form of association, or 
type of social organization, seems now to be emerging among 
civilized nations; that is, the democratic type, the type in 
which the mechanism of control is mainly in such indirect 
means as the education of the young, social standards, and 
moral ideals. In other words, the social control is through 
the intelligence and character of the individual members of 
the group. The control is placed within the individual rather 
than in external authority, but in the intelligence of the indi- 
vidual rather than in his impulses. This last form of asso- 
ciation is evidently a type into which even the most civilized 
human communities are only just beginning to enter. 
Whether it will succeed or not will depend upon whether 
such indirect forms of social control as education and idealistic 
social standards will suffice to give to the individual members 
intelligence and character which will adapt them harmoniously 
to one another, so that the requirements of social existence 
can be met. 

This evolutional classification of communities according to 
the type of social control gives us a survey of the whole 
evolution of social organization to which we shall have occa- 
sion to return later. It helps us to understand the trend in 
social organization from organization on the basis of blind 
instinct to organization on the basis of reasoning intelligence 
in the individual. Sociology itself is but an instrument to 
make practical this last form of social organization. 

Perhaps the most elaborate classification of social groups 
on the basis of the different psychological processes involved 
in their organization is that of Professor Giddings. First 
of all he divides all societies into instinctive and rational 
societies; the instinctive being limited to the bands, swarms, 
flocks, and herds of animals, the rational to human groups, 
since, as he says, “there is no human community in which 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE I4I 


instinctive response is not complicated by some degree of 
rational comprehension of the utility of association.” Com- 
binations of instinct and reason, however, are of many 
gradations, and the particular combination found in any 
given human community establishes for it the dominant 
mode of relation between individuals. Upon this basis 
Professor Giddings would classify human societies into eight 
distinct types, as follows: 


1, There is a homogeneous community of blood relatives, 
composed of individuals that from infancy have been exposed 
to a common environment and to like circumstances, and who, 
therefore, by heredity and experience are alike, Always con- 
scious of themselves as kindred, their chief social bond is sym- 
pathy. The kind of type of society, therefore, that is. repre- 
sented by a group of kindred may be called the Sympathetic. 

2. There is a community made up of like spirits, gathered 
perhaps from widely distant points, and perhaps originally 
strangers, but drawn together by their common response to a 
belief or dogma, or to an opportunity for pleasure or improve- 
ment. Such is the religious colony like the Mayflower band, 
or the Latter-Day Saints; such is the partisan political colony, 
like the Missouri and the New England settlements in Kansas; 
and such is the communistic brotherhood, like Icaria. Similarity 
of nature and agreement in ideas constitute the social bond, 
and the kind of society so created is therefore appropriately 
called the Congenial. 

3. There is a community of miscellaneous and sometimes law- 
less elements, drawn together by economic opportunity—the 
frontier settlement, the cattle range, the mining camp. The 
newcomer enters this community an uninvited but unhindered 
probationer, and remains in it on sufferance. A general appro- 
bation of qualities and conduct is practically the only social 
bond. This type of society, therefore, I venture to call the 
Approbational. | 

The three types of society thus far named are simple, spon- 
taneously formed groups. The first two are homogeneous, and 
are found usually in relatively isolated environments. The third 
is heterogeneous, and has a transitory existence where excep- 
tional economic opportunities are discovered on the confines 
of established civilizations. 


142 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Societies of the remaining five types are in a measure artificial, 
in part created by reflection—by conscious planning. They are 
usually compound products of conquest or of federation, and, 
with few if any exceptions, they are of heterogeneous composi- 
tion. They are found in the relatively bountiful and differen- 
tiated environments. 

4. A community of the fourth type consists of elements widely ~ 
unequal in ability; the strong and the weak, the brave and the 
timorous, exploiters and the exploited—like enough conquerors 
and conquered. The social bonds of this community are des- 
potic power and a fear-inspired obedience. The social type is 
the Despotic. 

5. In any community of the fifth type arbitrary power has 
been established long enough to have identified itself with tra- 
dition and religion. Accepted as divinely right, it has become 
authority. Reverence for authority is the social bond, and the 
social type is, therefore, the Authoritative. 

6. Society of the sixth type arises in populations that, like 
the Italian cities at their worst estate, have suffered disinte- 
gration of a preéxisting order. Unscrupulous adventurers come 
forward and create relations of personal allegiance by means 
of bribery, patronage, and preferment. Intrigue and conspiracy 
are the social bonds. The social type is the Conspirital. 

7. Society of the seventh type is deliberately created by agree- 
ment. The utility of association has been perceived, and a com- 
pact of codperation is entered into for the promotion of the 
general welfare. Such was the Achaean League. Such was 
the League of the Iroquois. Such was the confederation of 
American commonwealths in 1778. The social bond is a cove- 
nant or contract. The social type is the Contractual. 

8. Society of the eighth type exists where a population col- 
lectively responds to certain great ideals, that, by united efforts, 
it strives to realize. Comprehension of mind by mind, con- 
fidence, fidelity, and an altruistic spirit of social service are 
the social bonds. The social type is the Idealistic. 


Professor Giddings has suggested that from these different 
types of association have sprung different theories as to the 
nature of human society; but it is obviously wrong to con- 
struct a theory of human society from the observation of 
one type of social group. 


PRIMARY GROUP LIFE 143 


SELECT REFERENCES 


CooLey, Social Organization, Chaps. III-V. 

Bocarpbus, Introduction to Soctology, Chaps. V-XV. 

Burcess, The Function of Socialization in Social Evolution, 
Chaps. I-V. 

Crow, The Principles of Sociology with Educational Appli- 
cations, Chap. V. 

CoE, Social Theory, Chaps. II, IV. 

FinpLay, An Introduction to Sociology, Chaps. VI, VII. 

Gippincs, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, Bk. I, Chap. 
III, and pp. 433-518. 

HETHERINGTON and Murrueap, Social Purpose, Chaps. VII, 
VIII. 

LINDEMAN, Social Discovery, Chaps. IX-XI. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Soctology, 
pp. 47-51, and Chaps. III and V. 

Ross, Foundations of Sociology, Chap. VI. 

SIMMEL, Soziologie, Untersuchungen tiber die Formen der Ver- 
gesellschaftung. 

SmituH, An Introduction to Educational Sociology, Chaps. III-V. 

SNEDDEN, Educational Sociology, Chaps. IV-XII. 

TONNIES, Gemeinschafit und Gesellschaft. 


CHAPTER V 
THE UNITY OF THE GROUP AND GROUP ACTION 


As we saw in Chapter I, the first problem of theoretical 
sociology is the problem of social unity. This is first in 
the problems of group behavior; for there is no such thing 
as a social group or group action without some degree of 
unity. We must understand how this unity is brought about, 
how it is maintained, and what is its essential nature. Just 
as in studying psychology we try to understand how the mil- 
lions of cells of the brain and nervous system think and 
act as one, so in sociology we must try to understand how 
millions of individuals may think and act as one; how a 
collection of individuals succeeds in acting in a unified way. 
This problem has often been overlooked, or even denied, by 
students of human relations. Practically, however, it can- 
not be ignored. Practical statesmen, for example, have al- 
ways concerned themselves with the unity of the national 
group. But national unity is only one form of social unity, 
and the unity of the family, the local community, the church, 
or almost any other essential group is of equal importance; 
for without unity no group can accomplish anything. This 
problem is sometimes called the problem of “social solidarity,” 
though we generally use the word solidarity to express a 
high degree of unity; it is also sometimes called the problem 
of “social integration.” 


The Nature of the Interactions within a Group 


A group, whatever else it may be, is a mass of interactions 
between the individuals who compose it. Primitively, that is 
144 


THE, UNUDY ORV THE’ GROUP 145 


to say, in the most lowly forms of life, interactions must 
have been purely physiological or biological. Originally the 
unity of the group was a biological matter. It was an inter- 
dependence of individuals in the carrying on of a common 
life-process. We have seen, also, that these original biological 
connections between individuals developed, as we ascended in 
the social scale of life, into various forms of interstimulation 
and response which gradually became more or less conscious. 
Hence the interconnections between individuals became more 
and more psychic, and their interactions, becoming conscious, 
might be said to become more and more “mental interactions.” 
When we reach the human world, mental interaction, or men- 
tal interstimulation and response, makes possible human group 
life as we know it. 

It is hardly necessary to say that we do not mean by 
“mental interaction” that there is any direct connection or 
interaction between the minds of individuals. Each mind, 
so far as we know, is wholly unconnected with other minds, 
except through its relation to a common physical medium. 
Each mind responds, however, to the stimuli in this physical 
medium and among these stimuli are the symbols of thought 
and feeling created in the physical medium by the voice, 
the features, and the bodily movements of other individuals. 
These are reacted to and mentally interpreted. Thus com- 
munication between mind and mind becomes in some degree 
possible. This is what we mean by mental interaction. 

The student should, therefore, carefully note that there are 
no direct causal connections between one mind and another.* 
Hence there are usually no direct causal connections between 
the behavior of one individual and another. However, the 
minds of all individuals in a given social group tend to re: 
spond in similar ways to similar stimuli. This is because 
these minds have developed under similar biological condi- 


B25 OAS SIRS OR SAAD 0 Ee ON 
1For elucidation of this matter, see my Sociology in Its Psy- 
chological Aspects, pp. 76, 77. 


146 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tions, and have acquired similar habits through living together 
and carrying on common activities in a common environ- 
ment. Thus through the operation of natural selection in the 
species and through the process of habit formation in the 
group, the action and reaction of mind upon mind becomes an 
orderly and well-defined process. This is what we know as 
the ‘social process” in the social sciences, but ordinarily we 
call it communication, imitation, suggestion, sympathy, etc. 
It is the process of mutual adaptation and readaptation which 
goes on among the members of a group through mental inter- 
stimulation and response. Social life is thus essentially a 
process of mental interaction.” It is through the various 
forms of mental interstimulation and response that groups 
of relatively independent individuals can act together; but 
it is obvious that if a social group is to have any sort of 
unity these interactions must be regulated and controlled. 

It seems hardly necessary to discuss whether the unity of a 
group is physical or psychical. In a sense it must be both. 
Originally, as we have seen, the unity must have been physi- 
cal; but in human groups unity is certainly maintained almost 
wholly through psychic means. In human groups impulses, 
habits, feelings, perceptions, and ideas of individuals main- 
tain the unity of the group. It is especially the mental atti- 
tude of the individuals toward one another which is the 
final decisive factor which decides whether a human group 
shall maintain its unity. Essentially, therefore, the unity of 
a human group is a psychical matter, although from a 
strictly scientific point of view we must speak of the unity 
of a social group as “psycho-physical.” This statement 
would be equally true of the mind of an individual, since we 
know of no purely psychic processes which exist apart from 
physical processes. So if we speak of the unity of a social 
group as psychical, or mental, we mean only that the sig- 





2 Compare Chap. I of this book. 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 147 


nificant things regarding it, the things which make it a social 
group, are psychical or mental. 


Social Codrdination 


If a social group is to have any sort of unity it is obvious 
that the activities of its individual members must be adjusted 
to one another in some more or less definite way. Other- 
wise, the group cannot work together as a unit. We could 
not have group behavior, unless there was “grouped action,” 
that is, settled forms of interaction among the individuals of 
the group. We might compare the social group to a ma- 
chine. Now the unity of the machine is secured by the nice 
adjustment of its parts to one another. If this adjustment 
is not perfect, there will be friction and the machine will 
not work well, or perhaps not at all. So in a social group 
there must be an adjustment between the activities of its 
individual members, if the group is to work well as a unit, 
or even at all. 

In other words, individuals, in order to form a group and 
carry on a common life or common activities, must co- 
ordinate their activities; that is, they must mutually so adapt 
their activities that these activities work toward a common 
objective aim. It is this codrdination of the activities of 
individuals which makes group action or group behavior 
possible. It brings to a unity of aim the activities of all the 
individuals of a group. Swch a coadaptation, or mutual ad- 
justment, of the activities of the individuals of a group may 
be called a Social coordination. Just as a machine will not 





8Compare the statement of Dewey (Human Nature and Con- 
duct, p. 61): “In any case we must start with grouped action, 
that is, with some fairly settled system of interaction among in- 
dividuals.” Compare also the original statement of the writer 
(Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects, p. 144): “The significant 
thing for the sociologist is not that mental interactions between 
individuals exist, but that they are regular; not haphazard, but co- 
ordinated and controlled.” 


148 PSYCHOLOGY TOR VEU NM AINa oe ra bi 


work without the mutual adjustment of all its parts, so a 
group can do nothing without the mutual adjustment of the 
activities of its individual members. “Social adaptation” is 
a term also used sometimes to describe this process. It has 
also been called “the coimplication of activities,” because 
the activity of one member of a group implies the activity 
of other members, from the standpoint of the total behavior 
of the group. It might perhaps be even better called a “dove- 
tailing” of the activities of the members of a group. 


Social Coordination and Social Unity 


It is obvious that it is the codrdination of the activities of 
the members of a group which creates the unity of the group. 
It is not the mere fact of interactions between individuals 
which gives rise to the unity of the group. It is rather that 
these interactions are regulated and controlled so as to form 
a unified system of activity. A social group has unity only 
through the mutual adjustment of the activities of its mem-. 
bers. Coadaptation or codrdination of individual activities 
makes the group and its life. If we take this standpoint we 
shall have no difficulty in understanding group behavior. In 
a football team, for example, it is the coordinated activities 
of the members of the team which makes the behavior of the 
team. If the form of codrdination or adjustment is to change, 
then there must be various forms of mental interstimulation 
and response until a new adjustment is reached. Thus the 
conscious life of the group centers about the process of co- 
adaptation or coordination, just as the conscious life of the 
individual centers about the process of individual adaptation. 
If we take this standpoint of reciprocal adjustment or co- 
ordination of the activities of a group of individuals in their 
efforts to carry on a common life or a common activity, we 
shall have no difficulty in understanding the phenomena of 
group behavior, or the “social process” from the point of 
view of psychology. 


THe UNITY) OR. THE-GROUP- 149 


Social Codperation and Codrdination 


Cooperation is another word which might be used to de- 
scribe group behavior and the formation of a group, if 
narrow meanings had not become attached to this word. 
The coadaptation which we find in social groups is an active 
process, a “working together” toward a common end. In 
this sense it is a process of cooperation; but it is not co- 
operation necessarily in the sense of mutual aid, much less 
in the sense of conscious and willing mutual aid. There are 
many adaptations between individuals which give rise to a 
system of regulated or codrdinated activities which do not 
necessarily have mutual aid as their end. Even when two 
armies fight in a regular manner there may be said to be a 
“coimplication of their activities’ and to that extent their 
activities may be said to be “codrdinated.”’ On the other 
hand, we do not ordinarily regard such cases of regulated 
conflict as cases of cooperation. Again, groups of individuals 
often live together in a condition of mere toleration. In 
such cases individuals may show a high degree of co- 
ordination or coadaptation of their activities, but we also 
speak of their lack of cooperation. Strictly speaking, how- 
ever, the student of group life discovers some degree of co- 
operation in all of these cases; but popularly the word 
cooperation has come to mean “mutual aid,” and even con- 
scious and voluntary mutual aid. 

We may therefore speak of four degrees or types of 
social coordination which are discernible in human groups. 
The first, and most harmonious type, is where all members 
of a group voluntarily codperate, willingly render mutual aid, 
with a relatively equal exchange or interchange of services. 
This may be regarded as the perfect form of association or 
coordination.* The second is a group held together by tolera- 


4See Novicow, “Mechanism and Limits of Human Association,” 
Section III, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXXIII, p. 314. 


150 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tion and some exchange of services more or less unwillingly 
rendered. The third is a group a part of whose individuals 
dominate and exploit, or selfishly use, the rest of the group. 
Here exchange of services is unequal, and codperation tends 
to be one-sided. The fourth type is that of modified hos- 
tility, or regulated conflict, of which we have already spoken. 
Unmodified or absolute conflict would, of course, destroy 
all social adjustment. The last three types are frequently 
difficult to distinguish from one another and evidently over- 
lap. They may be regarded as imperfect forms of social 
coordination, but are very common in human society. It 
is evident that codrdination or coadaptation increases in a 
group as harmonious cooperation increases. 


Social Coordination and Social Organization 


The adjustments among the individuals that persist—be- 
come habitual—form the permanent organization of the 
group. Even when such adjustments are constantly chang- 
ing, however, the group must retain some degree of or- 
ganization if it is to remain a group. Thus we may say 
that the codrdinations among the individuals of a group form 
the substance of its organization; or that social organization 
is the result of the coordination of adaptive activities. The 
group organization is all the codrdinations or coadaptations 
among the members of a group, looked at collectively and 
as forming a system. It is the unity of the group looked 
at from the standpoint of its internal structure. But it is 
especially the persistent codrdinations or coadaptations which 
we bring together when we speak of “social organization,” 
or the organization of a group. If these coodrdinations or 
adjustments are settled and harmonious we may speak of 
them as the group’s “social order.” 


Objective Expressions of Social Codrdination 


Social organization in general is one of the objective ex- 
pressions of the coadaptations or codrdinations within a 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 151 


group. The type of the group, or the form of association, 
which we discussed in the previous chapter, is another one 
of these expressions. The objective expressions of social 
coordination cover all the visible uniformities and relations 
in group behavior. Social coérdinations, in an objective 
sense, are simply the regular modes of social activity in a 
given group of individuals. Every social group has these 
regular modes of social activity, which, if they are per- 
sistent, we may term singly “social habits’—a term which 
covers all enduring social codrdinations.® The family, for 
example, illustrates the whole matter very clearly; for the 
activity of every member of a family group is coordinated 
in very definite and regular ways with the activity of all the 
other members of, the group. If this were not so the family 
could not persist long as a group or maintain any high degree 
of unity. When we find such regular modes of social 
activity in small groups, we do not hesitate to call them “group 
habits.” But the student should note that these regular 
modes of social activity in small groups are exactly the same 
as usages and customs in larger groups, such as communities 
and nations. For the usages of large groups Professor W. 
G. Sumner popularized the term “folkways.” When such 
folkways or usages are considered important for the welfare 
of the group, they become the customs or mores of the 
group; and when customs have definitely behind them the 
established authority of the group they become “institutions.” 

Now all such forms of social habit, whatever we may call 
them, are extremely important for understanding, not only 
the behavior of groups, but also the behavior of individuals. 
For individuals have to adapt themselves to these group 
habits. They form, therefore, a very important part of the 
environment for the individual, and some would say entirely 
determine the social behavior of the individual. At any 





5 See Chap. III, p. 90 


152 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


rate, such group habits are very persistent in the larger and 
more permanent human groups, and, are very difficult to 
change, for to change them means to change the type of 
adaptation, or of social coordination, for practically all the 
members of the social group. Thus the organized life of 
the group changes very slowly; and in large groups it fre- 
quently seems to the individual like the order of physical 
nature, something to which one must adjust one’s self. 

The visible forms of coadaptation between individuals are 
multitudinous, and as we have seen in a previous chapter, 
no exhaustive enumeration or classification of them has ever 
yet been made. Certain great types, however, have been 
defined and long known. Through abstraction we may pos- 
sibly be able to reduce the multitudinous types of concrete 
social relationships to a few types. This may help in under- 
standing the various types of social relationships. Thus, for 
example, in taking the various forms of the family which 
have been tried out in human history, and studying them as 
types of social adaptation, we shall get much light upon 
the whole matter of group organization. 


Subjective Accompaniments of Social Codrdination 


If a group of individuals is to carry on successfully cer- 
tain common activities through mental interstimulation and 
response, those individuals must maintain certain mental at- 
titudes toward one another which will favor the quick and 
effective response of each to the stimulus which the activity 
of the others affords. Hence certain habits of feeling and 
of thinking, certain values and ideas, must develop in the 
group to facilitate group action or group response. In 
part these social values and social beliefs, with the cor- 
responding mental attitudes in individuals, are the outcome 
of the adaptations in the group, or of group behavior; in 
part, they are instruments used to facilitate and control 
group action. Hence, every group has as a most important 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 153 


part of its life certain group values or standards ard group 
patterns of action. Briefly we may call these “social values” 
and “social patterns.” These would be embodied in the 
tradition of the group. Corresponding to them will be the 
“social attitudes’ in the individual members of the group.® 
_ The family group, again, illustrates the matter. The life of 
the family group is controlled by certain social values and 
social patterns. The mental attitude of the members of the 
family toward these values and toward one another controls 
their behavior. The common feelings, ideas, beliefs, and 
values of the family group become controls over the activity 
of the group and at the same time are expressions of the 
common group life. Thus the adjustments between husband 
and wife, parent’ and child, are accompanied and controlled 
by emotional and intellectual attitudes. We cannot under- 
stand the life or behavior of any group without understanding 
the values and beliefs which are embodied in its tradition 
and in the habitual feeling and intellectual attitudes of its 
members. Hence the significance of these psychic processes 
for the understanding of social life. 


Coordinating Feelings and Ideas 


The feelings and ideas which are common to all members 
of a group are usually found to be “coordinating feelings 
and ideas”; that is, they are such as tend to maintain the 
unity and persistence of the group. Human social groups 
especially are characterized by the large amount of feeling 
and ideational elements which enter into their life. No 
doubt instinctive reactions are fundamental, since in animal 
groups the interactions of their individual members may be 
regarded as almost wholly instinctive. Instinctive reactions 
begin the process of codrdination or coadaptation. But in 
human society it is the feelings and ideas which are attached 





6 Compare Thomas, The Polish Peasant, Vol. I, pp. 20-35. 


154°) oPSYCHOLOGY OP HUMAN BOER Dy 


to social habits and which become group traditions that are 
the significant things, and which we must understand in order 
to control social behavior. In small natural groups, such 
as the family, the feeling attitude may often be the chief 
thing, though even here the standards and ideas accepted 
by the members of the group play an increasingly important 
part. In large, civilized, human groups, however, such as 
modern nations, unity of action and life is secured largely 
through certain ideas and beliefs shared by most of the 
people. Even in such groups certain sentiments like pa- 
triotism and loyalty play an equally important part. 

It follows, of course, that certain attitudes on the part of 
individuals are much more favorable to social codrdination 
and to the maintenance of group unity than others. Among 
these coordinating attitudes confidence and mutual trust are 
fundamental and are necessary for the establishment of stable 
group life. Harmonious social relations beget confidence, but, 
on the other hand, confidence is necessary for all but the 
simplest relationships. If a group is to be stable, individuals 
must form a stable environment with reference to each other. 
Hence the knowledge or belief that we can rely upon the 
character of others, what we call our “confidence” or “faith” 
in others, is necessary for the establishment of stable relation- 
ships. People cannot live together without some degree of 
mutual trust. This is well illustrated in our economic life. 
Economists have often remarked upon the great importance 
played by confidence or mutual trust in the transactions of 
commerce and finance. It is scarcely necessary to add that 
this attitude plays an equally important part in all other 
phases of the social life. Without it the family could not 
exist, government could not be carried on, and social work 
would have no secure basis. Lack of confidence, on the 
other hand, is a disintegrating element in any group. “Faith” 
is one of the foundations of human society. 

Sympathy and understanding are two other subjective 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 155 


attitudes which are very important for group life. They are 
preéminently coordinating attitudes, and at the same time, 
_ are among the most striking products of harmonious relation- 
ships. Instinctive sympathy may be regarded, as McDougall 
has pointed out, as one of the primitive cements of social 
groups; while habitual sympathy accompanies the harmonious 
coordination of individuals in all the higher stages of life. 
Only individuals who sympathize with each other and under- 
stand each other are fitted to adapt themselves readily to one 
another, As sympathy and understanding are so important 
in human groups, groups of all sorts do all that they can to 
promote sympathy and understanding among their members, 
In smaller groups there comes in the social significance of 
convivial occasions, or of “society” in the narrow sense of the 
word, which are designed to promote acquaintance and 
understanding among the members of the group. Hence 
civilized societies take many artificial measures for the de- 
liberate cultivation of sympathy and understanding among 
their members on account of the coordinating values of these 
attitudes. Individuals, moreover, conscious that their suc- 
cessful adjustment to their groups depends upon being un- 
derstood and sympathized with by their associates, sedulously 
seek sympathy and understanding from one another. On 
the other hand, the lack of sympathy and understanding be- 
tween individuals gives rise to friction within the group and 
may become the source of conflict and so of much of the 
tragedy of social life. 

Examples of coordinating intellectual attitudes, or of co- 
ordinating ideas and beliefs, are perhaps a little harder to 
give. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that all the great groups 
of human history have had coérdinating ideas and beliefs as 
an important element in their unity. All the great nations, 
for example, have had unifying ideas as to their mission, 
destiny, or work. These ideas have functioned to draw 
men together. The smaller groups have similar ideas con- 


150 PSYCHOLOGY OF THUMAN SOCIETY 


nected with their existence and purposes. It will be noted 
that ideas of very diverse character have had, under various 
circumstances, a cohesive power upon human groups; in- 
deed, whether a feeling or an idea will function in a unify- 
ing or disintegrating way in the social life or not, quite 
entirely depends upon circumstances. Yet it remains true 
that there are certain ideas and beliefs which are normally 
unifying in their tendency. These are especially the mental 
patterns taken from the life of groups, especially primary 
groups, when they are most harmonious and at their best. 
The ideas and ideals taken from the family group and the 
neighborhood group, such as brotherhood, mutual service, 
social equality, and social justice, function generally to unite 
men. Indeed, it is a characteristic of the ideas and ideals 
which we call “moral” that under normal circumstances they 
tend to unite men; for the virtues bind men together into 
harmonious relationships, and the ideas which stand for 
them function in the same general direction. Morality is 
thus another foundation of human society. 

These subjective accompaniments of the unity or integra- 
tion of human groups show conclusively that this unity is 
essentially psychic or a spiritual:matter. In the lower forms 
of life the unity of groups may be purely instinctive; but in 
human social life this instinctive control has been replaced 
by purposive, intelligent control. If we destroyed the 
spiritual element in human groups, if that were possible, 
no unity on the human plane would be left. Even if these 
mental accompaniments be only a means to perfect the ad- 
justments of life, they are evidently the absolutely decisive 
factor in the social life of civilized men. Social values, 
social attitudes, social patterns, moral ideals play the de- 
cisive part in the behavior of civilized human groups. We 
are not, however, now discussing the “causes” of social 
unity, but only its objective forms and expressions and its 
subjective accompaniments. 


THEO UNITY, OPMPHE GROUP 157 


Social Control 


The collective control of social life-processes, which we 
may call social control, is evidently an aspect of social co- 
ordination or coadaptation; for we could have no harmonious 
coadaptation of the activities of individuals without some 
form of group control over those activities. As we have 
just said, the control in animal societies may be instinctive ; 
but human societies undertake more or less consciously to 
shape and mold the habits, the desires, the beliefs, and the 
ideals of their members, so their activities may be easily and 
advantageously codrdinated with those of the whole group. 
Thus arise the phenomena of social control. Except perhaps 
in its simplest forms, group action is impossible without 
some degree of group control over the individual. Human 
societies, therefore, from the first present more or less of 
the phenomena of authority and of social discipline. If 
the individual varies too greatly from the standards of his 
group, if he refuses to coordinate his activities in har- 
monious ways with the members of his group, he is punished. 
From childhood to the grave the individual is surrounded 
by stimuli of all sorts, chiefly in the way of possible rewards 
and penalties, to get him to coordinate his activities har- 
moniously with those of his group. This is what we may 
call “social pressure.” As Giddings has said, “Upon the 
creating and perfecting of discipline, and upon the standardiz- 
ing of behavior and the selection of character by means of 
discipline, society ,has directed conscious efforts from the 
beginning.” * 

All this, of course, involves some form of social constraint 
upon individuals, though they may not be conscious of such 
constraint. Some degree of social constraint must be present 
in all social groups whose members have been in any degree 


— 





7 Studies in the Theory of Human Society, p. 206. 


138 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


individualized. With the greater individualization of the 
units of civilized human groups, apparently more and subtler 
forms of social constraint are necessary to get the individual 
to conform his conduct to the standards of his group. But 
groups often demand too much social conformity from their 
individual members. Constraint may exceed the limits of 
wisdom, may prevent fruitful variation, that is, it may main- 
tain social coordinations which are no longer best adapted 
to life conditions. It may, in short, become needless repres- 
sion. Thus arises possible conflict between the individual 
and the group. Yet it is evident that some degree of social 
control is as necessary and helpful for the individual as for 
the group. 

Social control and social conformity are necessary for 
human social solidarity; but a higher type of solidarity is 
secured in a group where the conformity of the individual 
is voluntary and intelligent; where the control is a pressure 
which has due respect for individual welfare. 

As social groups become what we may call self-conscious, 
then, they endeavor by definite policies to influence individual 
conduct so as to control and limit variations from the type 
approved by the group. But a certain amount of variation, 
of difference, in all social groups is necessary and desirable, 
not only for the division of labor within the group, but to 
preserve plasticity in its organization, so that readjustment 
and progress may be possible. Social control and social 
conformity have their real justification in the fact that 
groups have purposes which involve united or group action, 
and this is their only justification. Yet it is through col- 
lective or group action and achievement that civilization has 
been built up. From the first human society has been, on 
its constructive side, a great codperative process which has 
involved ever more complex and harmonious coodrdinations 
of its individuals. Hence the great civilizing traditions have 
become embodied in great institutions of social control which 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 159 


direct the main achievements of civilized human society. The 
part which these play in controlling and developing the social 
_ behavior of civilized men will concern us frequently later. 


Limits of Social Coordination 


Under this head of social control it is well to note that 
control over the social behavior of the individual cannot, in 
the long run, be a matter of mere external constraint. It 
is rather a matter of the development of socialized per- 
sonality in the individual members of the group; for the 
mental and moral development of the individual members of 
a group limits the complexity of their social organization 
and hence their capacity for social codrdination and social 
achievement. The higher types of social adjustment require 
a corresponding development in the intelligence and self- 
control of the individuals concerned. Hence the higher types 
of social organization require development of socialized per- 
sonality in individuals. It is not true, therefore, that social 
evolution can proceed independently of individual develop- 
ment. The intelligence and character of the individual, there- 
fore, set limits to social organization at any particular stage. 
If individual character and intelligence cannot be raised to 
meet the requirements which a higher type of social organiza- 
tion imposes, then social organization must drop back to a 
lower level. While a people’s social organization may be 
much lower than its intelligence and moral character are 
capable of sustaining, yet it is an old truth, and one well 
worth emphasizing, that any great advance in social life 
must ultimately depend upon raising the intelligence and 
moral character of the individuals concerned. 


Group Will and Group Individuality 

In human groups the objective aims of group action be- 
come conscious, and also become, in time, deeply accentuated 
group habits. When groups in the face of great difficulties 


160 PSYCHOLOGY) OF (HUMAN SOCIETY 


attempt to do certain things, they can do them successfully 
only by the closest codrdination of the activities of their in- 
dividual members, by what we, in ordinary language, call . 
“team work.” This means that each individual must to 
some extent identify his personality with his group; that is, 
subordinate his will, his activities, more or less completely, — 
to those of the group. Under such circumstances groups 
develop a definite direction and purpose in their activity. 
They develop, in other words, what we may call a “group 
will.” This is the necessary result from coOrdinating their 
actions in certain definite ways to achieve a common pur- 
pose. So far as groups achieve unity of aim or of purpose 
they may be said to possess a group will; but we only mean 
by this expression that the wills of their individual members, 
or of a large majority of them, coordinate in a definite direc- 
tion. A football team, for example, shows the coordination 
of the wills of its individual members to put the ball over 
the goal; and we rightly speak of this as the will of the 
team. Popular will in a nation is, of course, of the same 
character. There is nothing mysterious about group will; we 
see evidences of it constantly. 

In the same way social groups may come to have quite 
as distinct characters as individuals. They develop a definite 
individuality through the fact that their efforts are habitually 
coordinated in a given way. ‘These codrdinations, and the 
corresponding social attitudes in individuals, become so 
habitual that they give a relatively fixed character to the 
group as a whole. Taking an old definition of character, 
that it is “the leading purpose in life plus the momentum 
acquired by habit,” we see that it is quite as possible 
to speak, in this sense, of the character of groups as of 
individuals. Hence groups possess a definite individuality on 
the basis of their character. It is not surprising, therefore, 
that the law has tended to treat groups as “quasi-personali- 
ties,’ and that a considerable school of political thought sees 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 161 


no other way of extending legal control over human groups 
than to regard them as quasi-personalities. This the law has 
long done with the legalized corporations, but it has not 
yet successfully applied the doctrine to other groups, though 
there is manifestly a good sociological basis for doing so. 


Group Egoism 


From the fact that groups behave as individuals do with 
reference to their life conditions, it follows that groups may 
develop tendencies to aggrandize and exploit and to accept no 
standards but their own success and selfish interest; that is, 
they may develop group selfishness. Like individuals, social 
groups tend to consider their own collective life as of para- 
mount importance. Human history, for example, has il- 
lustrated the egoism and greed of national groups. Within 
the nation the egoism of various “interests groups,” such as 
political parties and economic classes, has been scarcely less 
pronounced. All too frequently political parties set them- 
selves above the country which they are supposed to serve. 
Even religious denominations and sects have repeatedly in 
history been guilty of making the interest of their sect the 
practical criterion of right conduct. Thus all groups, and 
hence all institutions, tend to make themselves ends in them- 
selves, apart from the larger social life which they are sup- 
posed to serve. 

From these facts has grown up the somewhat plausible 
theory that the egoism of social groups is unlimited. The 
existence of large groups, such as communities and nations, 
it is claimed, is possible only because a “balance of egoisms” 
of smaller groups is effected. The solidarity of a national 
group, for example, is claimed to be nothing but a “balance” 


8 The student will find most suggestive material on the causes of 
group egoism in Dr. George E. Vincent’s paper, “The Rivalry of 
Groups” in the American Journal of Sociology for January, I9II 
(Vol. XVI). 


162 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of competing interest groups, and its government or political 
structure simply the result of the egoistic pressure of one 
group upon another. According to this view, governments 
in practice represent nothing but an equilibrium or compro- 
mise between conflicting interests. 

That group egoism is a fact cannot be denied. But it hardly 
warrants an egoistic theory of the general structure of human 
society. In opposition to this doctrine of the unlimited ego- 
ism of groups, we must place the fact that under normal con- 
ditions individuals are not members merely of one group, but 
of many groups; and that their loyalty may be given as much 
to the larger groups as to the smaller groups. In other 
words, under normal conditions the whole personality of the 
individual is not surrendered to his party, his class, or his 
religious denomination; but his deeper loyalty is given to 
his country or even to humanity. Recent human history 
abundantly illustrates this. It is a fact that a larger and 
larger number of persons in civilized nations are seeking 
to coordinate their activities, not simply with their party, 
their class, their nation, or even their race, but with humanity 
as a whole. There is no justification for the doctrine of the 
absolute egoism of groups any more than there is for the 
doctrine of the absolute egoism of individuals. Human na- 
ture is such that, under the proper guidance of education and 
ideals, it can respond to the needs of the largest possible 
human group, humanity as a whole. The solidarity of 
humanity is a realizable fact, not a mere Utopian dream. 


The Causes of Social Unity 


If it is the coordination of individuals in activity which 
makes the unity of a social group, then what are the “causes” 
which bring about such codrdination? What are the active 
factors which bring about and maintain the integration of 
the group? To some extent we have already touched upon 
this question in our discussion of the origin of animal asso- 


THE UNITY OF THE: GROUP 163 


ciation and of human society. We have also noted in previous 
paragraphs various elements which enter into social co- 
ordination, and which are accordingly factors in social unity. 
But we need to outline the different sets of factors or causes 
which affect the unity of social groups when viewed statically. 
We find not less than seven different sets of factors which 
affect the unity of social groups, even when we take a static 
or cross-section view of their existence, as follows: 


1. Environmental Conditions 


The least that can be said about environmental conditions 
as affecting the unity of groups is that they must be favorable 
to the aggregation and integration of individuals. This is 
so obvious that the danger in a scientific study of society is 
that the importance of these conditions will be over-empha- 
sized. It will be well, therefore, if the student can see from 
the first that these conditions are among the less variable 
of the factors which affect social unity, and that hence, one 
cannot usually appeal to them to explain the fluctuations in 
the unity of a group which occur in relatively short periods 
of time. This statement is true of all of the first three sets 
of factors affecting social unity which we shall discuss. It 
should also be noted that environmental conditions rarely 
work directly and mechanically upon human groups. They 
usually affect group unity only indirectly through changing 
biological conditions, habits, instinctive tendencies, feelings 
and ideas. External conditions may change these in two 
ways, either through exerting a selective influence upon them, 
or through acting as modifying stimuli. In the first case, 
however, the effect of environment is seen only after the 
lapse of generations; but in the second case its effect be- 
comes perceptible at once through the modification of habits, 
feelings, and ideas. 

Aggregations of individuals occur only where external con- 
ditions of climate, soil, food, and geographical location are 


164 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


favorable. Dense human populations have from time im- 
memorial characterized fertile river valleys, indented sea- 
coasts, and, in general, localities where natural resources 
are abundant. These conditions favoring aggregation un- 
doubtedly favor social unity; but, as active factors, their 
influence upon social unity is more often negative than 
positive. That is, if these external conditions are not fa- 
vorable, groups tend to be scattered. Thus, a food supply 
sufficiently abundant permits the growth in numbers of 
social groups, and by permitting close contact between in- 
dividuals gives biological forces, instincts, habits, feelings, and 
institutions their opportunity to knit the group together. On 
the other hand, an insufficient food supply may make it 
difficult, if not impossible, for these other factors to function 
toward group unity, and may tend to disrupt even the most 
closely knit groups. The case is the same with practically 
all the other natural conditions upon which human groups 
depend for the material means of life. The least that can 
be said of them is. that these natural conditions must be 
favorable to aggregation if social unity is to have any chance 
to develop. 

Besides these relatively fixed conditions in the external 
environment, however, there are other environmental con- 
ditions which exert a decided positive influence upon social 
unity. These conditions are, in brief, the dangers in the 
environment which beset groups. As Professor Ross says: 
“Danger tightens and security relaxes the bonds of all social 
groups.’ ® In primitive times the danger from the brutes 
below man doubtless served as a powerful stimulus to keep 
primitive families and hordes close together. To some extent 
this is true in the tropics even at the present day; but within 
historical times, no danger has threatened human groups 
comparable to that offered by conflict with other human 





9 Ross, Foundations of Sociology, p. 287. 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 165 


groups. Among all the things in the environment of a 
human group, the most important are other human beings 
who may form possibly hostile groups. From the time that 
man became supreme over the rest of the animal world, 
human groups have been involved in a life and death struggle 
with other human groups. Only those human groups could 
survive, in this war with other groups, that developed:a high 
degree of solidarity, or unity, among their members. More- 
over, those groups that developed the highest efficiency in 
the conscious cooperation and coordination of all their mem- 
bers would have an advantage over other groups. Here we 
see two sets of forces working for group unity; one, a selec- 
tive process which would tend to eliminate or disintegrate 
groups lacking in unity and coordination; the other a 
process of more or less conscious habituation and control, 
purposefully undertaken by the group to protect itself against 
its enemies. Both processes would tend to promote endur- 
ing social solidarity. The first process would do so through 
the development of impulses favorable to group solidarity, 
such as imitativeness and organic sympathy. The second 
process, which is probably the more important for human 
beings, would lead to insistence on the part of practically all 
members of the group on the importance of coordinated ac- 
tivity, and to the establishment of social machinery in the 
group to bring this about. Through experience, the more 
intelligent groups of individuals would realize that some cen- 
tralized control is necessary if the group is to succeed in 
successfully defending itself against the aggressions of other 
groups. . 

It may seem absurd that the greatest degree of coordina- 
tion, unity, and solidarity in the larger human groups has 
resulted from war; but such is the fact. This cannot be 
denied, even though we may fully recognize that in the 
higher stages of human development war, or even unregu- 
lated competition between groups, is inimical to the realiza- 


166 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tion of the solidarity of mankind as a whole. Whatever 
promise social science may hold out of developing human 
social solidarity on the basis of higher factors in the future, 
it cannot be denied that in the past the stimuli arising from 
intergroup conflict and competition have been most potent 
in promoting the unity of human groups. Peace and security 
need not, perhaps, under all circumstances relax social bonds; 
not at least when humanity comes to understand that its 
struggle with the nonsocial and antisocial forces of nature and 
human nature demand as high a degree of cooperation, of 
conscious, cadrdinated activity, as the struggle of rival 
human groups. Nevertheless, we must recognize as a scien- 
tific fact the part which intergroup conflict has played in 
producing social unity in the past. 


2. Biological Conditions 


Of not less importance than environmental conditions 
among the factors working for group integration are bio- 
logical conditions. To work for group unity biological con- 
ditions must be either similar or, if different, comple- 
mentary, that is, creating a natural interdependence. Similar 
biological constitution makes it possible for individuals to 
live and work together; for under similar conditions similar 
individuals respond in similar ways to similar stimuli; and 
this coordinates their activities. Normal biological differences 
within the limit of the species are hardly less important as a 
means to group unity, especially when these differences are 
those of sex and age. The biological differences of sex and 
age function on the whole to promote harmonious association, 
because, as we have already seen, they create a natural inter- 
dependence among individuals and so bring about social 
unity. Reproduction necessitates a division of labor between 
the sexes and interdependence in life-processes. The bio- 
logical differences of age necessitates parental care, which, 
because it is prolonged in the human species, has been a 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 167 


prime unifying influence in human groups. These matters 
we have, however, fully discussed. 


3. Instinctive Tendencies 


These are, as we have already seen, natural impulses based 
on the hereditary structure of the nervous system. To work 
for social unity they must be either similar or complementary. 
The working of complementary instincts is sufficiently il- 
lustrated in the relation of the sexes and of parents and 
children. Similar instinctive tendencies give rise to similar 
responses in similar situations, and thus usually favor unity 
of group activity. That special instinctive tendencies fa- 
vorable to group life exist in man and in many other animals 
can hardly be denied. If the instincts of all the animals of 
the same species did not fit into each other, so to speak, so 
as to furnish certain original coadaptations which are neces- 
sary for the maintenance of the life of the species, the 
species could not long continue to exist. As living in groups 
is a matter of the utmost biological significance, those species 
that have survived through this behavior must have had fixed 
in them, through natural selection, hereditary reactions fa- 
vorable to this mode of living. Hence we find instinctive 
tendencies not only connected with sex and the family life, 
which we have already discussed, but also certain other 
tendencies, such as the impulses connected with defense and 
self-protection, which favor living in larger groups than the 
family. Whether or not man has a “herd instinct,” as cer- 
tain sociologists and psychologists have claimed, it is cer- 
tain that a number of his natural impulses fit him to live in 
relatively large groups. The dread of solitude and the 
love of company shown by all human beings, whether savages 
or civilized; children or adults, work in this general direc- 
tion. The love of the approbation of others also places in 
man a strong tendency to go with a group. Finally “in- 
stinctive imitation,” that is, the impulse to copy without con- 


168 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


sciousness of purpose, especially fits man for group life. 
All strongly imitative animals, without exception, live in 
groups, and whether imitation is an offshoot of gregarious- 
ness, or vice versa, does not particularly matter. The fact 
that all men show a passion to do as others of their group do, 
shows that they are by nature adapted to some sort of group 
life. 

Mutual imitation is the great means in human groups of 
making acquired habits uniform. While all imitation in 
human society is not of this natural or instinctive sort, but 
may be purposeful and rational, yet the natural tendency to 
do as others do, to fall into line with one’s group, facilitates 
coordination and unity in human groups. If the impulse to 
imitate did not exist as a natural tendency, but had to be 
taught, it would not be so easy to make uniform the activi- 
ties of a group. With such a natural tendency, however, 
the falling into line with one’s group becomes relatively easy 
and unconscious, saving the labor of thought and judgment 
on the part of the individual members of the group. A 
large part of the imitation which we find in human society 
seems to be of such an instinctive or unconscious character. 


4. Habits 

The habits of the individuals of a group must be either 
similar or complementary if the group is to maintain its 
unity. Similar habits, as we have seen, tend to insure uni- 
formity of action in a group. Complementary habits favor 
the division of labor in a group. In either case coordinated 
activity results. The habituation of individuals to each other 
in a common environment tends to bring about mutual ad- 
justment. Habitual codperation in common work draws peo- 
ple together and unifies them. From one point of view, the 
whole matter of social unity, so long as it is not a result of 
mere natural conditions, is a matter of securing coordinating 
habits in individuals. Imitation, whether customary or con- 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 169 


ventional, sympathy, codrdinating ideas, and social control 
all work together to this end. At any given moment the 
unity of any human group may be regarded as a matter of 
habit. A high degree of unity in a group means that co- 
adaptive habits have been successfully established; while 
conflict within the group means, as we shall see, the failure 
to maintain such habits. 


5. Feelings 


The factors in group unity which we have thus far enu- 
merated might be called the original or primitive factors, 
since they are found in all social groups, even in those below 
the human level. Behavioristic psychologists and many so- 
ciologists would apparently take into account no other factors 
in explaining the unity of human groups. However, as we 
have already pointed out, those controls over activity which 
we call feelings and ideas are much in evidence in human 
social life. Even though they come in only to reinforce or 
modify original and acquired tendencies, still so much in 
human society is built upon them that they deserve all the 
consideration which psychologically inclined social thinkers 
have given to them. Feeling, in the form of emotion and 
desire, sentiment and interest, reinforces or tends to inhibit 
instinctive and habitual activities. Thus the practical im- 
portance attributed to feeling in our social life cannot be re- 
garded as a scientific mistake. 

The feelings favorable to social unity must be either similar 
or complementary. Similarity of feeling tends strongly 
toward uniformity of activity within a group. Some feel- 
ings draw individuals together; others pull them apart, as it 
were. Feelings of antipathy and hatred, reinforcing natural 
impulses of conflict and avoidance, tend to dissolve social 
bonds. On the other hand, common feelings in a group favor 
the development of what we call sympathy. In its simplest 
or organic form, this is feeling as others feel, and such sym- 


170 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


pathy usually functions to reinforce powerfully the unity of 
small groups based largely upon instinctive impulses. Thus 
the natural affection of the members of a family group for 
one another is a strong bond of unity in the family. Re- 
flective or rational sympathy, which comes from the exercise © 
of social imagination, reinforces the unity of larger groups 
based more upon habits. As sympathy, which we may justly 
term the social emotion, reinforces altruistic impulses, it 
greatly strengthens social bonds. Acquired sentiments of 
interest and loyalty, such as patriotism, especially help to 
bind together the very largest human groups. A study of 
the systems of interest, desire, and sentiment in human 
groups may be made to throw as much light upon their life 
as we can get from any phase of their scientific study. Even 
if, from the strictly scientific point of view, we must admit 
that these feelings are mere accompaniments of activity, still 
what we have just said is practically correct; for these feel- 
ings, and the neural processes associated with them, not only 
stand for, but actually reinforce the activities of group life. 
Sociological science cannot afford to leave the element of feel- 
ing out of account in its description of group life. 


6. Ideas and Values 


Even in the associations of animals below man cognitive 
processes of a low order undoubtedly work toward a group 
unity. Thus the “consciousness of kind” may be assumed to 
awaken natural impulses of coadaptation among members of 
the same species. Perceptions of resemblances and differ- 
ences seems to work as means of attraction or repulsion 
throughout the animal world. Animals of like kind not only 
associate, but seemingly recognize that they are of like kind, 
and this perception reinforces their tendency to associate. 
Again, animals as well as men seem subject to mass sugges- 
tion. Suggestion serves to diffuse similar mental states 
throughout a group, and these states work out in similar 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP VEE 


or imitative activities. It is neither the consciousness of kind , 
nor suggestion which differentiates human society from ani- 
mal association. Rather, as we have said, it is “culture,” and 
culture is possible because man has developed as his char- 
acteristic control over action the concept, or abstract idea, or 
“mental pattern.” 7° It is the large use which human groups 
make of these conceptual processes, which we commonly call 
“ideas,” that distinguishes them from animal groups. These 
make for the human individual, when put into spoken words 
or other means of communication, an artificial, psychic en- 
vironment which constrains all his actions quite as much as 
the physical environment does the behavior of the animal. 
The web of intercommunication bearing social patterns and 
mental images becomes the environment to which the in- 
dividual strives to adjust himself. Thus civilized man lives, 
so to speak, in an environment of images and ideas which is 
not less real to him than the physical environment. It is for 
this reason that language, both spoken and written, becomes 
a powerful instrument in maintaining the unity of all human 
groups. The group tradition embodied in the language of 
the group becomes thus also one of the most active agencies 
to maintain group unity. 

On account of the importance of ideas, beliefs, standards, 
and values‘! for maintaining social solidarity, all human 
groups have endeavored to standardize these. They have 
endeavored to make all individuals of the group like-minded 
with reference to certain fundamental ideas, beliefs, stand- 


10 Jn an article in the American Journal of Sociology for May, 1925, 
Dr. Hornell Hart argues that subhuman groups in some cases show a 
low degree of “culture,” or “behavior patterns socially acquired and so- 
cially transmitted.” The cases seem mainly those of natural reactions 
socially or sympathetically excited (see Chap. XI), and the argument 
does not seem conclusive if culture is strictly defined. The importance 
of culture for human society is, of course, not affected, even if the 
argument is valid. 

11 Values, of course, are complexes of feeling and intelligence. 
See Chaps. III and XII. 


172 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ards, and values. Thus like-mindedness has come to be 
valued by human groups as supremely important for their 
unity. Manifestly, however, too great like-mindedness would 
produce too great uniformity throughout a group, would 


prevent the division of labor, would prevent the development — 


of complex forms of cooperation, and so would prevent the 
development of higher types of group unity. Differences in 
ideas, standards and values, where these differences are com- 
plementary and favor an advantageous division of labor, 
also conduce to the unity of the group. No general prin- 
ciple can be laid down here; but in: the main it would seem 
correct to say that groups need relative uniformity in the 
fundamental and essential beliefs and values of their mem- 
bers, while they may safely leave a large liberty in nones- 
sential beliefs and values. Manifestly, if the ideas, beliefs, 
and values of a group, when they concern fundamental 
group policies, are greatly dissimilar or inharmonious, they 
tend to produce conflicts within the group and to destroy 
its unity of action. It is evident that one of the greatest 
problems of modern societies is: how to secure sufficient 
uniformity of beliefs and values in their complex popula- 
tions to assure them unity of action when confronting a com- 
mon problem. This is one of the great problems of practical 
social science, and we shall accordingly devote considerable 
attention to it later. 

While beliefs and ideas may often function to disrupt 
groups, by the same power they may function to unite them. 
Hence the larger human groups have elaborate machinery 
of intercommunication to secure unity of action. This ma- 
chinery includes spoken and written language, the press, 
public assemblies, and all means of intercommunication. A 
fund of ideas is constantly kept in circulation in a group to 
guide and control the behavior of individual members. This 
fund of ideas, beliefs, and standards in circulation in a social 
group is sometimes spoken of as “the mind of the group,” 


—— =" 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 173 


though strictly this term should be applied to the whole psy- 
chic life of a group. Upon the basis of the traditional ideas, 
beliefs, and values, judgments of the group as a whole are 
reached as to the action which is desirable in any concrete 
situation. Thus the opinion of the group tends to preserve 
unity of action. These matters we shall have to take up 
further when we come to discuss the mechanism of social 
change. 


7. Conscious Social Control 


The unity or solidarity of human groups is in part main- 
tained by the control which the group more or less deliberately 
undertakes to exercise over the habits, ideas, and feelings of 
individuals, so as to make them conform to the needs of the 
life of the group. Gradually this control becomes embodied 
in the so-called regulative institutions of human society, or 
institutions of social control. Such institutions, of course, 
are social and cultural devices which are a product of man’s 
higher intellectual and social development; and they must not 
be thought of as something separate from the six sets of 
factors in social unity which we have been discussing. Their 
importance for the unity of human groups, however, is so 
great that they demand separate consideration. In high 
civilization they are the chief means of controlling the ac- 
tivities of individuals and they probably have more to do 
with the formation of the habits and ideas of individuals in 
highly civilized groups than all other influences, objective and 
subjective, combined. The pressure which they put upon the 
individual to conform his conduct to that of his group may, 
of course, exceed the limits of wisdom. Nevertheless, we 
must recognize that order and solidarity in vast, complex, 
human groups are impossible without specialized institutions 
for social control. However much they may seem to hamper 
the freedom of the individual, the constraint or discipline 
which they impose is of prime importance for the unity and 


174 PSYCHOLOGY OF: HUMAN SOCIETY 


survival of all civilized human groups. While we shall need 
to consider their functioning in detail when we take up the 
problem of social order, let us here note briefly some of 
these institutions of social control and what they do to 
maintain social unity. 7 

Roughly the chief specialized institutions of social control 
may be classified under the headings of government and law, 
of religion and morality, and of education. Government and 
law are directly coercive upon individual behavior. They 
have to do with the overt acts of the individual; they co- 
ordinate and control the activities of individuals with refer- 
ence to matters of common defense, of internal order within 
the state, and of social welfare generally. The weakness of 
government and law as institutions of social control is that 
it has not been found practical to extend them directly to the 
control of the motives of individuals or even to the forma- 
tion of their habits. The control of government and law 
is almost necessarily limited to the overt or external acts of 
the individuals. Despotic forms of government, to be sure, 
have attempted to do much more than this and to control 
motives, beliefs, and opinions; but in general they have not 
succeeded in doing this over long periods of time, and par- 
ticularly not without invoking the aid of religion or education. 
The free societies of modern civilization tend to use only 
the latter, leaving the church entirely free with respect to 
its religious and moral teaching. While the power of gov- 
ernment and law is limited, yet in all cases it is the agency 
of last resort to control the behavior of the individual in 
relation to his group. It stands, therefore, for the minimum 
of moral conduct on the part of the individual in relation to 
his group, rather than for the maximum. Nevertheless, 
it is a chief means by which civilized human societies main- 
tain unity and order. 

Religion adds a supernatural sanction to conduct, and so 
in all human societies has been found to be one of the most 


THE UNITY!/OF THE GROUP 175 


effective means of controlling human behavior. Religious 
sanctions generally attach themselves to habits of action 
which the group believes to be safe and which conduce to 
individual and social welfare. In this way religion power- 
fully reinforces the customs or mores of social groups. Re- 
ligious sanctions, however, may attach themselves not simply 
to customs, but also to moral ideals. Moral ideals have, 
indeed, had influence with the masses in every civilization 
hitherto only because of religious sanction. The self-sacri- 
fice and self-control which high moral ideals demand get 
their justification to the individual only through some sort 
of religious faith, The higher types of religion combat the 
idea that the misery and suffering of life are without mean- 
ing or value. They encourage hope and loyalty to high 
social ideals. Thus they give stability to character in the 
adult, and so make possible high and stable types of social 
relationships. This is especially true of those religions which 
stimulate the altruistic impulses and feelings of the individual, 
upon which, we have already noted, the higher and more 
complex types of social solidarity depend. 

Religion promotes social unity chiefly through its support 
of moral ideals. Moral ideals are simply social ideals of a 
certain sort. The moral ideals of low civilizations function 
chiefly to maintain the folkways or social habits, but those 
of high civilization through holding up a higher standard 
before individuals may function to secure higher types of 
social codrdination. The virtues recognized by a group, 
therefore, may not only bind its members together in har- 
monious relations, but also promote a higher type of social 
solidarity than the group has realized. High moral ideals 
promote social idealism. 

Systems of education have always been utilized by human 
groups to promote social solidarity. Even very primitive 
human groups take formal means, such as initiation cere- 
monies, to impress upon the young the value of the group’s 


176 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


customs and usages. Through all human history, groups 
have made use of various educational means of securing the 
conformity of individuals to their habits of living.1? Re- 
ligion and morality, and even government and law, have 
worked very largely through systems of education. The. 
reason for this is obvious, for the educative process is funda- 
mentally a control over the process of habit and character 
formation in the young. Human culture, as we have seen, 
rests upon acquired habit and character in the individual. 
Now as groups increase in culture and in size and complexity, 
many more habits have to be acquired by the individual, 
if the individual is to coordinate his activities successfully 
with his group. Hence the increasing importance of the 
education of the young as social and cultural evolution ad- 
vances. As social life becomes more complex, unless the 
whole process of education is controlled effectively by the 
group, there is much greater chance of socially unfavorable 
habits being acquired. Consequently, systems of formal edu- 
cation, with differentiated institutions, have to be created 
by complex human societies to fit individuals for member- 
ship in such groups. These systems of education frequently 
work under the fiction that they exist for the training and 
development of the individual as such, regardless of the 
social life; but their real purpose is to control individual 
habit and character in the process of formation, so that 
adults will be efficient in carrying on the social life and 
will coordinate their activities harmoniously with their group. 
Education is a social control over human life. . 

Perhaps a word should also be said about systems of inter- 
communication as an important factor in group unity. These 
may be regarded as means of mutual education for the 
adults within a group. In large complex groups the co- 


12 The best available discussion of education as a social function 
will be found in Dewey, Democracy and Education, especially Chaps. 
I-III. 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 177 


ordination of the activities of a vast number of individuals 
would obviously be impossible without a highly developed 
_ system of intercommunication between the individual units. 
Hence the development of means of communication has kept 
step with the development of civilization. Modern civilized 
societies could not survive, much less maintain their unity, 
without an elaborate system of intercommunication. It is not 
necessary to dwell in detail upon the codrdinating and in- 
tegrating effect of such systems and of all devices to pro- 
mote ease of communication. Obviously these devices were 
not invented and popularized merely for individual conveni- 
ence, as is often superficially assumed, but rather as necessary 
means of achieving social coordination and social unity in 
large and complex groups. We shall return to the importance 
of intercommunication for the life of groups when we con- 
sider social change. 


The Causes of Social Disintegration 


If the integration of human groups is secured by the 
favorable working of the seven factors which we have just 
discussed, then their disintegration should be brought about 
by the unfavorable working of these same factors. The 
factors which are effective for promoting social unity are 
also the ones which are effective in producing social dis- 
integration when they do not work favorably. The forces 
which make social unity also unmake it. Unless environ- 
mental, biological, psychological, and social conditions are 
favorable the unity of the human group cannot be main- 
tained. We have tried to note the conditions under which 
these various factors are favorable to social unity; and 
incidentally we have noted some of the conditions under 
which they are unfavorable. In general, we have seen that 
the higher types of social unity require, in order to endure 
long, high social intelligence and character in the individuals 
concerned. Hence in the complex civilized societies of the 


178 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


present, the vital element in social unity is probably the 
working of the institutions of social control which we have 
just discussed. The failure of government, of religion, of 
education, means the failure of the individual in many cases 
to get a proper adjustment to society. The system of social 
control in a highly civilized group is, therefore, all-important 
for its unity and survival. Social control is the method of 
group integration in civilization. 

The failure of the machinery of social control, in one or 
all of its forms, is probably the chief cause of both minor 
and major disintegrative processes in all civilized societies. 
Whether it be the disintegration of the family, of the com- 
munity, of a nation, or of a civilization, the disintegrative 
process in every case is rooted in the failure to control habit, 
and so social character, in individuals. The failure of the 
machinery of social control to be effective over the character 
and intelligence of individuals means that a group, such 
as a national group, for example, will be unable to get the 
leadership, the social character in individuals, and the com- 
plex codrdinations required for its existence; and hence such 
a group will tend to disintegrate. The causes of social 
disintegration are, therefore, cultural, that is mental and 
moral, and not primarily biological. This conclusion does 
not preclude the possible working of a “reversal of selec- 
tion” in human society, producing individual biological de- 
generation, and so undermining society’s biological founda- 
tion; but even such a reversal of selection implies some 
failure of the machinery of social control. Only the great 
cyclic changes of climate and other geographic factors, nat- 
ural calamities, and the like are outside of the power of 
the machinery of social control. But such factors do not 
appear to be the significant thing in the life of the great 
civilized nations of the present. The solidarity and survival 
of these groups is mainly a question of the efficiency of their 
institutions of social control. There is no necessary natural 


THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 179 


death of nations and civilizations. To this matter we shall 
return later when we consider reversions in civilization.** 


Interest Groups and Social Disintegration 


It is popularly supposed that the destruction of large 
groups is due to the formation within them of classes, parties, 
or sects, “interest groups,’ which behave in a selfish and 
disintegrating way toward the larger group. Such interest 
groups obviously play an important and necessary part in 
the life of great complex societies. In the form of classes 
they represent certain great permanent interests of the group 
which are the concern of the group as a whole. In the form 
of parties and sects they initiate and further political and 
social changes in'the group as a whole. Through competi- 
tion with other interest groups, each interest group achieves 
organization and a degree of unity in the way in which we 
have already described. In a large society individuals are 
necessarily exposed to different conditions. This fact, along 
with the variation in the original nature of individuals, tends 
to cause the formation of minor groups, whose interests 
and habits are more harmonious. The organization of such 
minor groups presents no peril to the larger group of which 
they are a part so long as the machinery of social control 
and of social readjustment remains efficient. As a rule these 
groups become a danger only when the interests which they 
represent are ignored or repressed by those who actually 
have the power of the machinery of social control in their 
hands. When thus repressed or denied, interest groups are 
apt to take on a revolutionary character, and may become 
serious disruptive agencies which threaten the unity of the 
larger group. This matter we shall take up again when 
we consider the question of social revolutions. But if the 
“interests” are recognized by the agents of authority and 


a 





13 See Chap. VIII of this book. 


180 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


proper adjustments are made on the part of the whole group 
to accommodate these interests, then the minor group rarely 
becomes an agent of disintegration. For interest groups 
will rarely carry their egoism to the point where they threaten 
the life of the whole group, if their just rights are recog- - 
nized; for the loyalty of their members, under ordinary 
circumstances, is much greater to the whole group than to 
the party, faction, or class to which they belong. But they 
may do this if they are not given adequate part in the control 
of the life of the group as a whole, or if the larger group 
has no adequate machinery of social control to socialize 
its members with reference to the whole group. It is, 
then, only when the machinery of social control is inadequate 
to socialize individuals and to adjust and harmonize the 
different interests of different groups, that we may expect 
interest groups to menace the solidarity of social life. 

Let us now consider still other obstacles to social unity. 


Conflict between Groups 


The natural relation between strange groups is one of 
competition, and so of possible hostility and conflict. Con- 
flict between groups which have never been coordinated and 
harmonized in the carrying on of the life of a larger group 
is, therefore, a normal matter. While larger groups are 
forming, however, out of smaller groups, a considerable 
degree of conflict may be maintained among these groups, 
and at times this modified conflict may break out into absolute 
hostility. The nations of Western civilization, for example, 
before the Great War were never fully organized or co6r- 
dinated. Their attitudes remained that of conflict, supposedly 
modified, to some degree, by the acceptance of a common 
religion, common culture, and beginnings of international 
law. Such slight beginnings of control and codrdination did 
not prevent actual conflict developing between them, and this 
conflict passed into an attitude of absolute hostility, because 


Arts UNG Owe TE GROUP: 181 


their tradition was that of strange and hostile groups. The 
nations of Western civilization, in other words, had never 
recognized themselves as constituting one united group. Con- 
flict between the separate groups under these circumstances 
was abnormal only to the extent that the continuance of the 
tradition of hostility and possible conflict among them was 
itself abnormal. It was, at least, unintelligent for these na- 
tions not to have recognized that they constituted one large 
group with increasing solidarity of interests. 

Another situation in which the primitive conflict and hos- 
tility of strange groups may be preserved after a larger 
group has been formed is in the case of “caste societies.” 
In such cases the separate castes or classes were originally 
separate groups and failed to lose their identity in the larger 
group because they are imperfectly assimilated and_har- 
monized. The familiar historical example is the case where 
one people has conquered another, and the subjugated people 
is reduced to a subject nationality, or possibly to a slave 
class. In such cases the attitude of separateness and hos- 
tility is apt to continue indefinitely. A codrdination or ad- 
justment arises between such groups, but it is one of ex- 
ploitation or modified hostility. The attitude of hostility 
persists beneath the surface of behavior, or is generated 
afresh by exploitation and oppression. Hence the whole 
psychology of group action has to be modified in the case 
of such compound societies, for we are really dealing with 
groups which retain more or less of their original separate- 
ness and which have never attained complete unity of life 
or harmonious mutual adaptation. 


Conflict within the Social Group 


Conflict within a social group, which has once attained 
relatively complete unity of life or the harmonious codrdina- 
tion of its members, should be sharply distinguished from 
conflict between groups which have remained more or less 


182 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY . 


separate and hostile. We are safe in saying that the former 
is socially abnormal and is the result of some maladjustment 
between the members of the group. Whereas, conflict be- 
tween groups which have never achieved mutual adjustment 
may be regarded as socially abnormal only from an idealistic 
point of view. We are speaking here of hostile conflict, not 
of that degree of conflict and opposition which normally 
accompanies all readjustments within a group. Some degree 
of opposition and conflict within a group, whether small 
or large, is a normal accompaniment of the breaking down 
of old adjustments or habits and the building up of new 
ones. There is no such thing as the social conditions within 
a group remaining long unchanged. The conditions of life 
change, and the social adjustments which worked well yes- 
terday will not work to-day. Hence the habitual adjustments 
between individuals must be continually changed, if true 
and right relations between individuals are to be maintained. 
The customs and institutions of society at large must ac- 
cordingly be continually modified if they are to remain right 
and happily adjusted to conditions. Now normally this proc- 
ess of social readjustment goes on so gradually in a group 
that serious forms of conflict do not develop between its 
members. The modifications in the behavior of the different 
individuals in a group are brought about by such peaceful 
means as mutual criticism, discussion, and voluntary agree- 
ment upon group policies and action. But where these means 
of effecting social readjustment are not used because they 
are imperfectly developed, or where, for any reason, inflex- 
ibility in attitude and behavior may develop in some portion 
of the group, especially among its dominant individuals, trou- 
ble is bound to result. For under such conditions there will 
be a failure to construct new and harmonious coodrdinations 
between the members of a group in harmony with the new 
life conditions; and conflict of habits and attitudes is bound 
to ensue. Any failure on the part of any group to keep 





THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 183 


its means of social readjustment and social control in the 
highest state of efficiency means that hostile conflict is apt 
to break out between the members of the group. 

It is here that much of the tragedy of social life comes 
in; for it is here that the opportunity for hostility between 
the members of a once unified group arises, and hence also 
the possibility of the more or less complete disintegration 
of the group. Social habits have to constantly change to 
meet changes in the environment. Individuals are exposed 
to different stimuli and respond differently. Individuals 
also vary in their organic constitution and on that account 
their responses will also vary. It is evident that social 
habits of every group must, in order to meet these conditions, 
undergo constant readjustment. Yet there is a tendency in 
human groups, and possibly in human nature, to avoid making 
readjustments if possible, because the process of readjust- 
ment always involves effort and is to some extent disagree- 
able. Hence the conservative tendency in groups to keep 
adjustments which have once been made even after they 
are no longer useful. Members of a family group, ¢@for 
example, often get adjustments to one another which work 
well for a time. These adjustments become habitual atti- 
tudes, but the conditions of life change and these attitudes 
need to be changed to meet the conditions. But for various 
reasons certain members of the family may fail to keep 
a spirit of accommodation and to modify their attitudes in 
accordance with the new conditions. As a consequence, the 
old adjustments are maintained too long. They finally break 
down, and new harmonious adaptations may fail to be made, 
because the members of the family have grown too far 
apart. Consequently the family suffers a more or less com- 
plete disintegration which might have been avoided if the 
unity of its life had been maintained by the constant read- 
justment of the activities of its members in harmony with 
conditions. 


184 PSYCHOLOGY :OF (HUMAN ISOGIETY, 


Now it is the same in the wider social organization of 
nations, as it is in the more intimate relations of family life. 
Unless the unity of these large groups is maintained by 
constant readjustment of the habits and attitudes of all 
classes to accord with life conditions, conflict between classes 
is bound to develop. The attempt to retain fixity in institu- 
tions is, in other words, one of the chief causes of conflict 
within these large groups. Hostile conflict within such 
groups can be largely avoided by flexibility in institutions. 
Normally a people’s institutions are continually changing; 
old forms of social adjustment and institutional life normally 
become gradually modified by the free intercommunication of 
ideas, free public criticism, and the formation of a public 
opinion. This process may be so gradual that a new insti- 
tution springs with scarcely a break out of an old one. Con- 
flict of ideas and opposition of parties are doubtless necessary 
and inevitable; but the necessary changes in institutions, nev- 
ertheless, are effected by peaceful means—sometimes without 
any high degree of consciousness on the part of the indi- 
viduals of the group as to the import of the change. This 
type of peaceful social change disturbs least the unity of 
human groups and characterizes the most harmonious group 
life. It is possible only when the machinery of readjustment 
and social control within the group is kept at its maximum 
of efficiency. 

But when this machinery of social readjustment and social 
control breaks down, the unity of the group is bound to 
be disturbed and may be destroyed. If, within a national 
group, for example, free intercommunication of ideas, free 
public criticism, free discussion, free formation of public 
opinion, free selection of leaders, and free determination of 
public policies are hindered, then the unity of the national 
group will either temporarily or permanently suffer; for 
institutions will remain unchanged too long. When they 
finally break down, under such conditions, conflict of a serious 





THE UNITY OF THE GROUP 185 


sort between classes and parties is bound to develop. It is 
from such conditions as these that serious class conflicts 
spring up, and also those disturbances which we call “social 
revolutions” and which we will consider more in detail in 
another chapter. Here we would only emphasize that serious 
conflict, the conflict which destroys or threatens a social 
group, is a relatively abnormal condition if it arises in the 
group, and is due to the failure of its members to maintain 
harmonious adjustments. 


Individual Social Maladjustment 


Such conflict as we have just described is obviously the 
result of social maladjustment of a certain sort. The term, 
however, is usually reserved for the maladjustment which 
is exhibited by individuals who have fallen into the socially 
abnormal classes—the dependent, defective, and delinquent 
classes. Social maladjustment, in this sense, is a somewhat 
more complex matter and may arise from a variety of 
causes. It may arise from abnormal individual biological 
variations, springing from causes more or less independent 
of social conditions. These may be summed up in the phrase 
“abnormal heredity.” It may arise from the failure of the 
educative process to give to individuals habits and character 
which will adjust them to normal social life. Personal edu- 
cation is here the source of maladjustment. Finally, social 
maladjustment may be due to faulty social organization, 
especially to defects of the economic organization of a 
group. 

As we have seen, the regulative institutions of society, 
grouped under government and law, religion and morality, 
and education, exist to control the acquired character of the 
individual and to help him successfully adapt himself to the 
habits and standards of his group. Whenever these institu- 
tions of social control fail to do this, their failure shows 
itself in the genesis of maladjusted individuals. These 


186 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


individuals are so imperfectly socialized that they cannot 
adjust themselves successfully to the institutions and order 
of their society. Defects in economic conditions and ar- 
rangements also may make it impossible for the individual 
to adjust himself successfully. Moreover, these conditions 
may totally destroy the individual’s power of adjustment 
through compelling him to live in such circumstances that 
his normal bodily and mental powers become impaired. 
Therefore, through conditions in the physical environment, 
the lack of education, and the failure to get proper social | 
standards, the individual may fail to become socialized. He 
may develop habits that put him so far out of adjustment 
with his group that he becomes more or less parasitic or 
even antisocial in his nature. It is mainly through these 
conditions that we have the genesis in civilized society of 
disproportionate numbers of dependent persons on the one 
hand, and of delinquent persons on the other, along with 
certain classes of more or less hereditary defectives. 

It is evident that to control the social adjustment of the 
individual completely it would be necessary for the society 
to exercise control over the individual’s heredity. In all 
probability, it will be found very difficult to do this for some 
time to come; but it should be comparatively easy for civilized 
society to control the acquired habits and character of 
individuals. Our imperfect social arrangements, especially 
the faults in our economic organization on the one hand, 
and in our training of the young on the other, are respon- 
sible for the larger number of social misfits in our present 
society. Such dependent, defective, and delinquent persons 
could scarcely bring about in themselves the downfall of 
nations or civilizations. But if their number increases suf- 
ficiently they may become a burden on the normal part of 
the population, and so a source of social weakness. More- 
over, the conditions which produce them may affect the whole 
group, rendering its members incapable of a high degree of 





THE UNITY, OF ‘THE: GROUP 187 


social efficiency or of complex social adjustments. This 
shows the necessity of removing the causes of social malad- 
justment as far as we can. So far as this can be done, it 
will tend to make the whole life of civilized societies more 
normal. Philanthropic activity in modern civilized groups 
has, therefore, a significance in group life. It not only re- 
claims individuals for society and removes from free social 
life those that cannot be reclaimed, but it functions to main- 
tain the unity of the group, by preventing its dissolution 
and disintegration through the action of conditions which 
are destructive to civilized social life. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Maclver, Community, 3d edition, Bk. III, Chap. IV. 

Auuport, Social Psychology, Chap. XIII. 

Bautpwin, The Individual and Society, Chap. II. 

Baz, The Basis of Social Theory, Chap. VI. 

Bocarbus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Chap. XXIX. 

Cote, Social Theory, Chap. VIII. 

Cootey, Social Organization, Chap. I and pp. 330-336; Social 
Process, Chap. II. 

Davis, Psychological Interpretations of Society, Chaps. I, Ill, V. 

Dewey, Democracy and Education, Chap. III. 

Duprat, La Solidarité Sociale, Premiére Partie. 

Fouttett, The New State, Chaps. III-V. 

Gawutt, Social Psychology, Chap. II. 

Gippincs, Studies in the Theory of Human Society, Chap. 
XII and pp. 257-285. 

Hosnouse, Social Development, Chap. VIII. 

MUNSTERBERG, Psychology, General and Applied, Chaps. XVII- 
XIX. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chap. VI. 

Ross, Social Control, Part I; Foundations of Sociology, pp. 
256-290. 

SIMMEL, Soziologie, Chaps. I-IV. 

SMALL, General Sociology, Chaps. XX XIII-XXXV. 

SumMNER, Folkways, Chaps. I, II. 

Wiutams, Principles of Social Psychology, Bks. II-VI. 


CHAP LERTVY 
THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP AND ITS CULTURE 


SocIAL continuity is the unity of society in time. The 
principles of group unity which we have just discussed 
apply also to the continuity of group life. Nevertheless, 
these principles work somewhat differently in social con- 
tinuity, so that we may view them in a somewhat different 
manner. Moreover, human groups have a peculiar mech- 
anism to maintain their historic and cultural continuity, and 
hence it will be necessary to consider the problem of social 
continuity as a separate and distinct problem. It is the 
second problem in group behavior, because we cannot under- 
stand such behavior in human groups without understanding 
the life history of the group on the mental side. 


The Physical Basis of Social Continuity 


One basis for the continuity of group life is, of course, 
the continuity of its physical environment. Through pre- 
serving the same physical stimuli the continuity of the physi- 
cal environment helps in no small measure to preserve the 
continuity of group life. Thus the same geographic environ- 
ment by furnishing the same stimuli and materials for culture 
may help to preserve habit and custom. Again, the selective 
influence of the geographic environment, operating over rela- 
tively long periods of time, may perhaps fix in a stock 
certain inherent traits which are favored by that environ- 
ment. Even more important than the geographic environ- 
ment, however, are the technical modifications which man 
has made in it, such as roads, canals, bridges, railways, 
buildings, and all sorts of physical tools. These favor the 

188 





THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 189 


continuity of habit and usage in a population and so help 
to preserve social continuity. Indeed, the whole technology 
of civilization may, from one point of view, be considered 
a mass of purposeful alterations in the physical environment 
to secure the continuity of social life. All of these things 
preserve similar stimuli which usually give rise to more or 
less similar reactions in individuals, even in a succession: 
of generations, and thus make for social continuity. 

The physical environment of a group may be changed, 
however, especially the geographic environment, and yet the 
continuity of group life may persist. Evidently more im- 
portant as a physical basis for the continuity of the group 
is the continuity of the race, of the germ cells, which we 
call heredity. Heredity insures the inherent traits of the 
stock being passed along from generation to generation. Thus 
the original physical traits of the stock are preserved; and 
in as much as these organic traits include a nervous system 
with relatively definite capacities, we have transmitted by 
heredity, also, certain inherent traits of a mental character. 
The natural human tendencies and capacities of the stock 
are preserved. Thus every normal human individual is born 
with certain natural impulses, with the capacity to form 
many acquired habits, with the capacity to feel pleasure and 
pain, with the capacity to think and to reason, and to become 
a civilized, socialized person. It is evident that, without 
these inherent powers and capacities furnished by human 
heredity, human groups could have no continuity in their 
life. While these inherent powers and capacities, which 
make up original human nature, may vary somewhat among 
individuals, as we have seen, yet it must be emphasized that 
in all human individuals they remain practically similar, 
and that their similarity is a basis for social continuity. 
Moreover, they have been similar as far back as we can go 
in history or even into the remote prehistoric past. As we 
have already seen, it is improbable that there have been any 


1909 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


considerable changes in the physical and mental constitution 
of man since the end of paleolithic times. Here, then, in 
the continuity of life itself, which we call heredity, we have 
a physical basis for human social and cultural continuity. 


Custom and Customary Imitation 


Custom is more than mere habit. It is an outcome of the 
interaction of individuals. It is a continuity of habits ac- 
quired by individuals which, passed along from generation 
to generation, make possible the continuity of the life of 
the group.’ This is a result, not so much of habituation 
to a common physical environment and technology, as of 
consciously teaching children to take on the acquired habits 
of their elders. It also results from the more or less uncon- 
scious imitation of the elders by the young. Thus this process 
of transmission of habit from generation to generation, 
which makes possible the continuity of culture, is brought 
about in human society through unconscious imitation and 
through the pressure of various agencies of social control. 
Not infrequently, children are compelled by various means 
of discipline to acquire the habits of their elders. This 
process cannot be understood, of course, apart from com- 
munication and tradition, yet the elements of imitation and 
of habituation through discipline are very large in the process, 
and perhaps even the chief elements to be emphasized. 

Now custom may, from the point of view of objective 
behavior, be regarded as the main element in the continuity 
of human groups. It is doubtful if it can be said to exist 
below the human level; for nonhuman groups do not have 





1 Compare the more accurate definition of custom given in Chap. 
III, p. 90. Custom and tradition are often confused. Thus Dewey 
(Human Nature and Conduct) uses custom to include tradition, 
while Keller (Societal Evolution), Sims (Society and Its Surplus) 
and others use tradition to include custom. The distinction followed 
in this book is that proposed by Ross, Social Psychology, p. 196. It 
is obviously in line with psychological and sociological clarity. 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 1091 


the machinery of social control to bring it about. The 
human child, however, is born into a relatively definite social 
organization with a definite culture and definite forms of 
social control. The group organization as a rule establishes 
the way the individual must act if he is to gratify his own 
inherent desires. In the mere social structure alone, there- 
fore, apart from any modifications effected in the physical 
environment, there is a tendency to continue habit and so 
give rise to custom. 

The environment into which the human child is born 
is chiefly an environment of human individuals. These have 
certain definite modes of behavior, certain definite social atti- 
tudes, and maintain certain definite relationships with one 
another. In brief, they have a definite culture. The child 
gets his social adjustments largely through imitating these 
individuals. He learns these adjustments through copying 
the actions of those around him. There are usually no 
other patterns for him to copy, and, as we have just said, 
all sorts of pressure is put upon the child to get him to 
conform his behavior to the behavior of his group. Cus- 
tomary imitation or the imitation of elders becomes his chief 
method of learning and about the only means of his social 
adjustment. Thus the life of a group or of an institution 
does not perpetuate itself automatically. It perpetuates itself 
by taking up and absorbing the incoming generations, se- 
curing their unconscious adjustment by imitation and by 
social pressure, Custom is, then, a way of living in a group 
to which people adapt themselves more or less unconsciously. 
It is the basis upon which the life of the group is carried 
on and this is the real ground of its authority. 

Professor Hobhouse says that “custom as custom is 2 
rule accepted uncritically and supported in any case that 
arises by general sentiment.”* He speaks of it as “uncon- 





2 Hobhouse, Social Development, p. 47. 


192 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


scious rule,’ in the sense that it is accepted uncritically. 
The individual rarely asks questions about it. Thus the 
mass of customs forms the groundwork of social life and 
enables the group life to move “on noiseless wheels.” But 
just because custom represents mass habits which are diffi- 
cult to change, when circumstances change, custom may — 
become a serious obstacle to progress. It is under such cir- 
cumstances that custom comes before consciousness and 
becomes an object of critical examination. 

It is customs as the mores, however, that is, as usages 
sanctioned and supported by certain traditional beliefs, which 
become all-powerful in continuing group life. Hence it is 
the element of tradition which we must examine to find the 
distinctive thing in the continuity of human groups. 


The Social Tradition 


Physical environment, heredity, and habit will account for 
all of the continuity which we find in animal groups below 
man, even the most developed; but they will not account 
for the continuity which we find in human groups. For the 
continuity of human groups is dominantly cultural and 
historical. Another element has entered in, made possible 
by man’s higher intellectual development; and that element 
is group tradition. By tradition we mean, in the sociological 
sense, all knowledge, beliefs, standards, and values handed 
down from the past. As Professor Ross says,® tradition is 
dominantly a way of thinking handed down from generation 
to generation, while custom is a way of doing that which 
has been handed down. The chief vehicle of tradition is 
manifestly oral and written language. It is, therefore, a 
product of man’s power to form concepts or abstract ideas 
and to preserve these through the definite means of inter- 
communication which he has developed. So far as we know, 





3 Ross, Social Psychology, p. 196. 


THE CONTINUITY OF ‘THE:GROUP 193 


no animal group has ever been able to form a tradition. 
Tradition is thus the distinguishing element in the con- 
tinuity of human society. Hence all that is peculiar in 
the social evolution of man depends upon tradition. Cul- 
ture, or civilization, is, in one sense, the development of 
tradition. As Professor Hobhouse says: “Tradition is, 
in the development of society, what heredity is in the physical 
growth of the stock. It is the link between past and future, 
it is that in which the effects of the past are consolidated, 
and on the basis of which subsequent modifications are built 
ipsa 

Originally man must have started without a social tra- 
dition. Like the brutes he lived merely in a world of 
objects. The earliest men, in other words, began without 
accumulated knowledge and without definite beliefs or stand- 
ards. But as soon as the power of abstract thought and 
articulate speech began to develop, men could accumulate 
knowledge and pass it along to their fellows. Now, the 
simplest tool requires knowledge and skill in its making. 
When this knowledge is transmitted from one individual 
to another it becomes social property and is gradually in- 
creased by the contributions of individuals. By accident 
or invention a tool, or a new type of tool, is discovered or 
invented. The knowledge of this is then spread; other 
individuals use the tool and improve its pattern. And so 
the process goes on; bit by bit the primitive group acquires 
knowledge and skill and transmits it. This is true not only 
of physical tools, but also of the relations of individuals 
and of the organization of the group. Thus knowledge, 
ideas, and standards are slowly accumulated, forming a social 
tradition which is at the same time the fabric of the civiliza- 
tion or the culture of the group. In this way man gradually 
builds himself up out of the perceptual world, the world of 


Et 
_ 4Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 34. 


194 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


objects, with which he began, into an ideational world, the 
world of culture. 

As the social tradition grows in bulk it increases in influ- 
ence. Men now come to live, not so much in a world of 
objects, as in a world of ideas—of pattern ideas—which - 
immediately control their adjustments both to the objects 
of nature and to their fellows. Hence, with the growth 
of culture the world of objects grows of less and less 
importance in guiding man’s behavior, while the world of 
ideas which comes to him through oral and written language, 
or possibly through imagination and reasoning, becomes of 
greater and greater importance in controlling human conduct. 
The world of ideas thus takes the place of the world of 
mere percepts for the civilized man; for the complex habits 
of the higher stages of cultural development cannot be built 
up and maintained in human groups without large accumu- 
lations of knowledge and a complex educational process for 
individuals.’ The knowledge and beliefs passed along by 
one individual to another greatly increase the variety and 
range of human adjustments, because the number of mental 
images or patterns which the memory of each individual 
can call up is vastly increased. 

The growth of tradition, that is, the accumulation of 
knowledge, ideas, beliefs, standards, and values, has, then, 
gradually substituted a psycho-social environment for a 
merely physical environment in the life of civilized human 
beings. This does not mean that civilized man has a smaller 
world of real objects, but only a larger world of ideas; 
and that he approaches his world of real objects with values 
which have been furnished him by his social tradition. Every 
developed type of civilization or culture, therefore, is dom- 
inated by certain mental patterns which give it its particular 
form and color. The chief of these mental patterns we may 


5 Compare Dewey, Democracy and Education, Chap. I. 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 195 


call ruling ideas or ideals, They are what the historian, 
Lamprecht, has called the “psychic dominants” of the cul- 
ture or civilization. They are the “controls” of group beha- 
vior, and they have to change if the social life is to change. 
Embodied in the signs and symbols of oral and written 
language, they furnish the dominant element in the social 
tradition and largely make the social environment of the 
individual. 

The substance of culture, as we have already pointed out, 
is custom and tradition; but the customs of human groups 
are practically always supported by traditions, that is, by 
the knowledge, ideas, beliefs, and standards of the group. 
Hence, the traditional element in culture is the main element. 
It is not too much,to say that cultural evolution is in essence 
an evolution of pattern ideas, by means of which human 
conduct is controlled. It is these pattern ideas, patterns of 
action, lodged in the minds of individuals, which are the 
standard by means of which the members of the group 
measure and control their behavior. When such patterns of 
action have received the sanction of the group, they become 
the main control over individual behavior. Hence individual 
behavior is of a high type or of a low type, according to 
the custom and tradition of the group. As Professor Hob- 
house says, “Any tradition will obviously call forth from 
human beings the qualities appropriate to it, and it will, in 
a sense, select the individuals in which those qualities are 
best developed, and will tend to bring them to the top of 
the social fabric.” ° That is to say, the social tradition molds 
both the character of individuals and the behavior of the 
group. A cultural tradition of a high type raises the group 
to a high level of culture, if its individual members are 
persons of normal human powers; whereas, a cultural tra- 
dition of a low type keeps a group upon a low level of 





x! Hobhouse, of. cit., p. 37. 


196 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OR HUMAN SOCIELY 


culture, or even may lower a group from a relatively high 
level to a lower level. This is what we mean by saying 
that man is preéminently a cultural being, and that his be- 
havior must be understood through his culture. 

Tradition thus furnishes the basis for the cultural and. 
historical continuity of the group. It is tradition which 
makes us, in a cultural sense, the heirs of all the human past. 
With only trifling modifications what Professor Cooley says 
of communication is true of tradition also. “By the aid of 
this structure,’ he says, “the individual is a member not 
only of a family, a class, and a state, but of a larger whole, 
reaching back to prehistoric man whose thought has gone 
to build it up. In this whole he lives as an element, drawing 
from it the materials of his growth and adding to it what- 
ever constructive thought he may express.” * Equally finely 
Professor Hobhouse says: “The tradition of the elders is, 
as it were, the instinct of society. It furnishes the prescribed 
rule for dealing with the ordinary occasions of life, which 
is for the most part accepted without inquiry and applied 
without reflection. It furnishes the appropriate institution 
for providing for each class of social needs, for meeting 
common dangers, for satisfying social wants, for regulating 
social relations. It constitutes, in short, the framework of 
society’s life, which to each new generation is a part of 
its hereditary outfit.”® “Thus the continuity of an insti- 
tution, and of a whole social system, consists in a living 
tradition in which at any given time the institution is mould- 
ing the lives and minds of men, but is also being itself 
remoulded by them.” ® 

All this may be illustrated from the life of almost any 
social group. It is the continuity of tradition which gives 
a group a sort of immortality of its own. A football team, 





7 Cooley, Social Organization, p. 64. 
8 Hobhouse, op. cit., p. 34. 
® Hobhouse, Social Development, p. 212. 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 197 


a regiment, or a nation may, through the power of its 
traditions, shape and mold the behavior of its individual 
units even though they are constantly changing; and this 
molding power of their traditions gives to these groups 
a continuous life. The crack British regiments, for exam- 
ple, lost all save a small fraction of their men during the 
Great War. Yet while their personnel was continually chang- 
ing, these regiments retained their historical identity and 
continuity through the molding power of their traditions. 
It is the tradition of the group, in other words, which 
accounts very largely for the behavior of the individual 
members of the group, especially when he is consciously 
acting as a member of the group. It is this sociological fact 
which makes all students of social behavior confident that 
its possibilities have not yet been explored. The men that 
entered the crack British regiments to replace those that 
had fallen or been retired were probably not men exception- 
ally distinguished for bravery. They became brave through 
the discipline of the regiments which they joined; and the 
pattern of this discipline was in the traditions of these regi- 
ments. 

The spirit of a group, its morale, its essential behavior 
depends, therefore, upon the nature and qualities of its tra- 
ditions. In as much as these traditions are subject to mod- 
ification, so also is the behavior of the group. Not only may 
the traditions of a group be modified, but new traditions 
may be given to groups. History illustrates this on a 
wholesale scale; as, for example, when the barbarians of 
northern Europe took up the traditions of Greco-Roman civ- 
ilization. 


Comparison of Tradition to Heredity and to Memory 


It is evident that custom and tradition are very closely 
related, usually as the objective and subjective manifestatiorts 
of the same process. Together they have been called by 


198 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


some authors “social heredity,” though the analogy sug- 
gested is a misleading one. For custom and tradition are 
social facts, not biological. The method of their transmis- 
sion is not by means of the germ plasm, but through social 
interaction of individuals, that is, through mental interstim-— 
ulation and response.*® The social inheritance is hence 
far more modifiable than the biological inheritance. More- 
over, custom and tradition often become dissociated. Es- 
pecially in modern civilization do we have certain tradi- 
tional ways of thinking and of valuing, but with no 
well-established corresponding customs. Traditions which 
have no corresponding customs are, however, usually tradi- 
tions which are not held universally by the group. These are 
especially apt to be traditions of social idealism. 

More happily tradition in the group has been likened to 
memory in the individual. In one sense, of course, the 
basis of tradition is memory. But tradition depends upon 
the interaction of individuals, and not merely upon the neural 
processes associated with memory. What memory is to the 
individual, however, tradition is to the group; it preserves 
the sense of continuity and identity; it stores up experi- 
ence and makes it available for the guidance of future con- 
duct. 

It may correctly be said, therefore, that tradition rep- 
resents in social life, not heredity and instinct, but habit. 
Its basis is really habits of thinking and feeling which 
are passed from individual to individual through some form 
of mental interaction. It functions, moreover, to preserve 
the habits of the group, habits which the experience of 
the group in the past has led to group approval. There is 
only analogy between custom and tradition, on the one hand, 
and heredity and instinct, on the other; but there is sub- 
stantial identity between them and habit. 





10 Compare Keller, Societal Evolution, Chap. VII. 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 199 


The Social Validity of Tradition 


If groups live and control their behavior through their 
traditions, does this necessarily make these traditions wise? 
The answer is that the traditions or patterns of groups, like 
the ideas of the individual, may be wise or unwise. Many 
social traditions are unreflective, and are simply the result 
of adjustments made in the past with very little reflection 
or knowledge. When the patterns in a social tradition are 
erroneous there are only two ways of getting rid of their 
errors. One is through rational criticism and selection; but 
fully developed rational criticism arrived only with the ad- 
vent of science. The only other way of getting rid of 
wrong patterns of group behavior has been through the 
competition and elimination of the groups affected by them. 
Consequently, errors in the social tradition may persist for 
an indefinite time, especially if they do not affect greatly vital 
organic processes. Such considerations show that natural 
selection has very little to do with the getting rid of erro- 
neous traditions. Hence erroneous traditions like war, 
slavery, and human exploitation may persist in a culture for 
thousands of years. This is all the more possible because 
social traditions have added to them in the course of time 
the prestige of antiquity. Sometimes they come to be ven- 
erated as the wisdom of the past when they little deserve 
it. Moreover, the wisdom of the past itself is often in- 
adequate to deal with present problems. 

Yet it is obviously unwise for any nation, any group, or 
even any individual, to discard all the ideas, all the knowl- 
edge, beliefs, and values of the past as worthless. No one, 
indeed, can do this. It is not simply the main content of our 
political, religious, and moral ideas which is traditional, but 
also that of our scientific and technological ideas. The 
only difference is that the scientific and technological tra- 
ditions are seemingly more open to revision than our political, 


200 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


economic, religious, and moral traditions. The scientific atti- 
tude toward tradition would seem to be that the ideas, beliefs, 
and standards which have served society in the past have 
a presumption in their favor, but that they need constant 
reéxamination. Traditions long maintained have probably 
had some social utility. They are at least roughly adjusted 
to social desires or else they would not have existed so 
long. In many cases, however, the wishes of groups may 
have been mistaken. It is the business of science and com- 
mon sense to pick the socially useful out of what has come 
down to us from the past and utilize it for the building up 
of the present and the future. Alleged truth needs always 
to be retested by experience. 


Traditionalism 


But this is not always easy to do. Social traditions are 
not only group habits of thought but they become enmeshed 
in the whole structure and organization of the group. The 
institutions of a group may be such as to favor certain 
traditions and to oppose any change in ideas, beliefs, or 
values, no matter how rational the change may be. It is this 
fact which makes long-standing traditions very difficult to 
change in human societies. Inflexible traditions of this sort 
are very manifestly a danger to the group in which they 
exist; for change is the law of life for groups as well as 
for individuals. When habits of any sort become inflexible, 
social disaster sooner or later almost inevitably results. Social 
continuity in human life is, of course, supremely important; 
but it is no more important than rational social change. 
What human societies need is continuity with change. They 
need, in other words, tradition but not traditionalism. Tra- 
dition must be kept distinct from traditionalism, and the 
student must bear in mind that the social or group tradition 
is never simple but is a system of many traditions, some 
of which may be in conflict with others. 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 201 


The Social Mind 


Many sociological writers use the term “social mind” or 
“group mind” to express the ideas and values which are 
in circulation in a group and which dominate the group’s 
behavior. To a certain extent such a term is scientifically 
justifiable. In the strict sense, of course, individuals alone 
think, feel, and will. But a group carries on its life and 
activities, as we have seen, by means of the interaction and 
coordination of the thinking, feeling, and willing processes 
of its individual members. There is such a thing, therefore, 
as a collective mental life in a human social group, in the 
sense that there is a codrdination and integration of these 
intermental processes, even though there is no such thing as 
a social mind in the same sense in which there is an individual 
mind. The term “social mind” is, therefore, only a con- 
venient term to express the mental unity of the group. This 
mental unity of the group life, as we have seen, exists not 
only at a given time, but it is continuous. Its continuity 
depends upon the process which we have just described 
under tradition. The group tradition is, indeed, almost 
synonymous with the group mind. Just as the content of 
the individual:mind at any given moment is largely memory, 
so the content of the social mind is very largely tradition. 
But in the ideas and values in circulation in a group at any 
given time there may be, in addition to those that have 
come down from the past, certain new perceptions and 
judgments concerning the existing situation. The social 
mind, accordingly, includes not only the social tradition but 
also the public opinion of the moment. 

It may be objected that here is an even more vicious 
analogy than the analogy which is implied by calling custom 
and tradition “social heredity.” The reply is, however, that 
in this case we have no other single term available to express 
the mental life of a group. This mental life, as we have 


202 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


seen, does form a unity and a system not unlike the mental 
life of the individual, though it is not integrated in a 
single unified consciousness. It is, however, a system of 
ideas, standards, and values controlling the behavior of the 
group, persisting and changing like the ideas, standards, and 
values of individuals; because they are the ideas, standards, 
and values of individuals as well as of the group. But the 
ideas and values in the group mind do not include all those 
in the minds of its individual members, but only those that 
are circulating in the group, preserved in its system of com- 
munication, and in some degree sanctioned or approved by 
the members of the group. The social mind in the sense 
of socially prevalent ideas and values controlling group be- 
havior is a very real thing, and has to be reckoned with 
by every one who deals with groups, whether football teams, 
crowds, publics, regiments, or nations. 

The following quotation from Hobhouse will illustrate 
what we mean by the social mind and also the part which 
tradition plays in forming it: “Science is more than the liv- 
ing knowledge of any individual. It is social knowledge 
or social thought, not in the sense that it exists in the mind of 
a mystical social unit, nor in the sense that it is the common 
property of all men, which it certainly is not, but in the 
sense that it is the product of many minds working in con- 
scious and unconscious cooperation, that it forms a part 
of the permanent social tradition going constantly to shape 
the thought and direct the efforts of fresh generations of 
learners—that, in a word, it has all the permanency and 
potency which the individual has not. We might easily 
apply the same reasoning to other departments of thought, 
to philosophy, to religion, to the literary and imaginative 
representation of life, and to the common-sense knowledge 
that at once expresses and helps to form the experience of 
ordinary men in ordinary relations. The thought of any 
society at any time is a social thought. This social thought 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 203 


forms the point of departure for individuals who are brought 
up in it, perhaps go beyond it and contribute something 
fresh of their own, perhaps fail fully to assimilate and fall 
short of it.’ *t 

Thus it is evident that such terms as “social mind” and 
“group mind” do not stand for objective entities, but are 
convenient terms to express the unity of the subjective side 
of the life and culture of a group. 


The Function of Primary Groups in Social Continuity 


As has already been pointed out, the primary groups play 
an especially important part in preserving custom and tra- 
dition in human society. The family group, especially, from 
its very nature is above all other human groups fitted to 
hand down from generation to generation definite habits, 
customs, and traditions. The prolonged immaturity of the 
child in the environment of the family leads him naturally 
to imitate his elders, while the discipline of the family group 
sometimes compels him to imitate them. The prolonged 
association of the child with the members of his family group 
is a prime factor in the continuity of social life. The same 
thing may be said about the neighborhood group. Both 
these groups preserve essential social customs and _tradi- 
tions ; and within them tradition and custom have the greatest 
chance to work, because their habits and customs are usually 
closely correlated with their ideas and beliefs. In them the 
child learns social values and social attitudes by seeing them 
illustrated in practical human behavior. Consequently the 
culture of a group can break down, barring the physical 
degeneracy of the stock, only through the decay of these 
primary groups. The other institutions to preserve custom 
and tradition can scarcely work effectively except as they 
work through the family and neighborhood groups. The 





11 Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 95. 


‘ 


204 PSYCHOLOGY OFS HUMANZASOUIETY, 


real basis of any civilization must be in the life of these 
groups because we know no other means so effective of 
preserving and passing along civilizing traditions. It should 
be remembered that they not only preserve the social pat- 
terns but furnish them. In a sense, every individual born 
into society has to be assimilated to its culture; and the 
face-to-face groups, because they generate sympathy and 
understanding and rest upon personal acquaintance and ap- 
preciation, have greater power of social assimilation than 
any other groups. 


Social Assimilation 


Social groups are continually taking up into themselves 
new elements. The life of the individual members of the 
group may be brief, and the new elements, whether they come 
by birth or from the outside, must be assimilated and or- 
ganized into the life of the group. This process is known 
in sociology as social assimilation. The problems which it 
involves might have been considered when we were discussing 
the unity of the group, as social assimilation implies that 
the new elements become harmoniously coordinated with the 
group. However, they may be equally well considered under 
the heading of social continuity, for continuity is equally 
involved with unity in the problem of social assimilation. 
If a group fails to assimilate its new elements, not only 
is its unity impaired, but also its continuity. If it succeeds, 
however, in passing along to the new elements its customs 
and traditions unimpaired, then the continuity of group life 
is unaffected, as only the changes involved in normal social 
erowth result. 

In considering social assimilation it is well to remind one- 
self that even those individuals who are born into the group 
have to be socially assimilated. Thus it is not impossible 
that in the United States there are many who have been 
born here who have never taken up the essential national 


THE CONTINUIIYV OR (THE GROUP. 205 


social traditions of American life. They need Americaniza- 
tion quite as much as any foreign element. This may be 
true even though their ancestors have lived in the country 
for generations. If in some way in their family and neigh- 
borhood life essential American traditions have been broken 
down, they may remain far from American in their spirit. 
' In the case of a complex nation like the United States this 
is all the more possible on account of the complexity of its 
traditions. Also it may well be true that certain elements 
have resided in the United States for generations who have 
never been thoroughly assimilated to American ideals. 

On the other hand, it is obvious that those who are born 
in a group are usually assimilated most easily to the customs 
and traditions of the group. They necessarily learn the 
language of the group in early childhood, and with language 
come the principal patterns for behavior. Moreover, through 
prolonged immaturity and development in a given group, the 
individual has a better chance to learn its ideals and rules 
of living. He comes into contact at first hand with the 
group mind, that is, with the socially prevalent ideas and 
values of the group. He probably also feels more imme- 
diately the pressure of the group’s customs, traditions, and 
opinions. Moreover, his acquaintances and friends are 
chiefly those of the group in which he is born, and the 
power of sympathy and personal attachment pull the in- 
dividual strongly in the direction of his group. All these 
things and many others make it comparatively easy for an 
individual born in a group to be assimilated by that group. 
This is largely true even in caste societies where free inter- 
marriage and social intermingling are not permitted between 
social classes. 

The problem of social assimilation is usually thought of 
as the assimilation of foreign elements, persons that come 
from other groups, and especially from other nations. Such 
persons usually come with different habits and ideas from 


206 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


those of the group which they enter; that is, their traditions 
and customs differ. Sometimes such persons lay aside easily 
their former habits and ideas, and hence are easily absorbed 
by the group which they have entered. This is possible 
where persons of two different groups speak the same lan- 
guage and have already the same fundamental customs and 
traditions. But when the language of the two groups dif- 
fer, and still more when there is a wide difference in social 
customs and traditions, there is usually necessary a process 
of mutual accommodation which may take some time. Such 
a process necessarily results in changes in the absorbing 
group, but if these changes are wisely controlled they may 
be for the better. The culture of all human groups through- 
out human history has grown through the absorption of 
foreign elements. One method of social growth is by bor- 
rowing ideas and institutions from other groups. Such 
borrowing when wisely done usually results in social prog- 
ress. Hence the absorption of foreign elements in the life 
of a group, if they can be assimilated successfully, is usually 
a stimulus to progress. This is the main reason why the 
most progressive societies have usually been made up of 
mixed elements. 

The intermingling of unlike elements breaks up too great 
fixity in custom and tradition and introduces plasticity into 
the life of the group. If the group takes from its new- 
comers their best ideas and habits it may learn much; and 
on the other hand, the newcomers need to have presented 
to them the best ideas and habits of the group which they 
have entered. Such a process leads to the comparison of 
the ideas, beliefs, standards, and values of both groups. It 
develops the critical-mindedness of both groups, and hence 
usually results in the selection and preservation of the best 
in the customs and traditions of both groups, or stimulates 
the invention of new institutions. 

Ideally this is the way in which the process of social as- 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 207 


similation should go on. But quite evidently it can have 
such a happy result only if certain conditions are main- 
tained. In the first place, an atmosphere of tolerance must 
be maintained in the absorbing group. Any attempt at 
coercion of the new elements is almost certain to create in 
them attitudes which will hinder their assimilation. In the 
second place, a certain degree of sympathy and consciousness 
of kind must be developed between the foreign element and 
the assimilating group; for both of these assist greatly in 
the mutual adjustment of individuals. In the third place, 
there must be frequency of personal contact between the 
foreign element and the population of the assimilating group 
so that there may be opportunity for mutual acquaintance, 
mutual understanding, mutual imitation, and the free ex- 
change of ideas. In the fourth place, there must be associa- 
tion to some extent in common work and common occupa- 
tion, or the division of labor will tend to keep the new 
element separate from the old and prevent the contact of 
which we have just spoken. Finally, social and linguistic 
isolation of every sort must be overcome, or at least mini- 
mized."” 

If these principles of social assimilation are true, it is 
manifest that a free, democratic society, in which there is 
substantial equality between all members in respect to legal 
rights and economic and educational opportunities, should 
show greater power of social assimilation than other types 
of social life; and this history abundantly proves. The 
power of assimilation which the people of the United States 
have hitherto shown in respect to their foreign immigrants 
has been due to this fact. Professor Ross well sums up 
the five features of American social life which have given 
it great assimilative power,1® namely: (1) the toleration of 
the American people for traditions and customs other than 


12 Compare Bogardus, Americanization, Part IV. 
18 Ross, Social Psychology, pp. 241-243. 


208 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


their own; (2) the individualism which puts the position 
of each individual in society upon a basis of his own per- 
sonal worth; (3) the cult of progress, which leads even 
the custom bound to seek to adjust themselves to a changing 
future; (4) the conferring of equal political rights; (5) | 
equality of educational opportunities, molding the young 
to American traditions and detaching them from those of 
their parents. 

These are, indeed, some of the most important condi- 
tions of successful social assimilation, and when the Amer- 
ican people have failed to assimilate their foreign born it 
is usually because they have departed from these conditions. 
However, freedom, tolerance, sympathy, understanding, and 
common work are not all that there is to the process of 
social assimilation. ‘The conditions for successful social as- 
similation are the conditions which are favorable to the 
acquiring of relatively similar habits, similar ideas, and 
similar standards by all members of the group, and to the 
coordinating of their activities into an harmonious whole. 
When peoples differ too much from each other, this is dif- 
ficult. It is obvious that a common language is needed: for 
communication, and as the vehicle of the essential traditions 
of the group. Linguistic isolation is fatal to social assimila- 
tion. Equally so is territorial isolation when it interferes with 
social contact. Again caste and class lines, while they may 
not prevent a certain degree of assimilation of those born in 
a group, are fatal to the assimilation of a foreign element. 
Race prejudice is especially fatal to assimilation. Social 
assimilation is possible only in proportion as we make the 
conditions favorable to social coérdination. 

When there are too great differences in the traditions and 
social attitudes of groups mutual accommodation is impos- 
sible, and the tradition of one group or the other has to 
be given up, or else a relatively separate group is formed 
by the foreign element to preserve its own tradition. As 


te COMLEINUERY COR CTH GROUP 209 


was said in discussing the unity of the group, there must be 
fundamental likeness between groups or else their differences 
must be complementary, and so useful. This is obviously 
not the case when it comes to the assimilation of barbarous 
groups by civilized groups. When such groups come into 
contact, there is usually little or no accommodation. Either 
the barbarous group gives up its traditions for the tradi- 
tions of the civilized group, or else it tries to preserve them 
by forming a separate group. Either alternative is fatal to 
the culture of the barbarous group. On the other hand, 
when persons from civilized groups of equal or similar cul- 
tures mingle together there is usually mutual accommodation 
with respect to their customs and traditions. In the case 
of such accommodation, the assimilating group usually ab- 
sorbs certain elements from the tradition of the foreign 
group, without in any way breaking the continuity of its 
life, but rather enriching its own culture. It is such assimila- 
tion by mutual accommodation which should be aimed at in 
civilized groups. Indeed the whole civilized world would 
have its culture vastly enriched if such a process of mutual 
assimilation could pervade all civilized nations. Nothing 
would do so much to overcome the provincialism and social 
isolation which now makes it largely impossible for civilized 
nations to cooperate. 


Static Society and Civilization 


We think of culture as normally dynamic; and it is true 
that every culture is undergoing more or less change. But 
many civilizations of the past have changed so slowly that 
we rightly call them static or stationary. The difference be- 
tween a static and a dynamic civilization is clearly a matter 
of degree. But the slow movements of culture in some 
human groups demand explanation. Perhaps sociology and 
cultural anthropology are not yet able definitely to answer 
the question why certain human groups have remained for 


210 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


a long time in a relatively static condition, while others are 
characterized by rapid change. The causes seem to be 
resident partly in the physical environment, partly in human 
nature, and partly in the form or type of social organization. 

Taking these causes up in their order, it is certain that. 
isolation, both physical and social, has played a large part 
in fostering static culture in certain human groups. Thus 
human groups isolated from other groups on islands or by 
mountains, deserts, or other practically impassable barriers, 
have generally tended to remain stationary in their culture. 
Nothing seems to break up the sway of custom and tra- 
dition like the multiplication of contacts between different 
human groups. Isolation, whether the result of physical 
or social causes, prevents the wholesome competition be- 
tween habits, customs, and institutions which usually results 
in the selection of the best. Probably the greatest reason 
for the survival of certain peoples in the savage and bar- 
barian stages of culture down to recent times has been 
their physical isolation. Nearly all of these peoples were 
isolated from the main developments of human life, side- 
tracked, so to speak, in out-of-the-way places. If the 
American Indian and the African Negro had not remained 
isolated from the development of European culture for two 
thousand years, it is improbable that they would have re- 
mained barbarous. 

There is, of course, a possibility that different. human 
types vary in the readiness with which they make changes, 
though we have no conclusive evidence upon this point. 
Some races in history have undoubtedly been less progressive 
than others, but this seems to have been due to physical and 
social isolation or to other social causes which we shall 
mention. But we must admit that it is more than a pos- 
sibility that in some types of mankind there is a more ven- 
turesome, pioneering spirit which is favorable to change than 
in others. This is certainly the case with individuals, though 


THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 211 


it may not be true of masses of men. In one way, however, 
race has certainly an effect upon changes in the culture 
of a group, and that is indirectly through the fact that 
physical differences of race tend to keep distinct ethnic 
groups apart, The lack of a consciousness of kind in such 
cases tends toward repulsion, and so favors social isolation 
and social stagnation in the way already described. Social 
contact is necessary for normal social development. 

We must also, of course, allow for the tendency of habit to 
dominate in ordinary human nature and human society. 
Human beings are creatures of habit, and the inertia of habit 
works against change among all peoples and under all social 
conditions. Intelligence, as we have already noted, is one of 
the latest developed traits of human nature, while habit is as 
old as life itself. Now intelligence is the chief element in 
human nature which works toward change. It is the chief 
instrument of individual and social adaptation; but, as a 
rule, it functions in the mass of men only when their habits 
work poorly. The dominance of habit tends, therefore, to 
produce inertia in the mass of mankind, and so brings them 
under the sway of custom. It is usually only crises, emer- 
gencies, new situations, which call forth intelligent construc- 
tive activity, and these crises and new situations are produced 
by social contacts or by a changing environment. 

Intellectual beliefs may also produce unprogressiveness in 
peoples. Such beliefs may be merely supports of habit and 
custom. Traditionalism, as we have seen, is the foe of prog- 
ress. Hence certain social conditions and cultural traits may 
work powerfully to favor static civilization. Thus ancestor 
worship, teaching extreme reverence for the dead, for parents, 
and for elders generally, has been one of the most powerful 
influences making for the perpetuation of customs and a 
stationary condition of civilization of which we have knowl- 
edge in human history. 

This illustration suggests that the chief reason for non- 


212 PSYCHOLOGY ?OF HUMAN I SOCIE DY 


progressiveness in semicivilized and civilized peoples must be 
sought in their institutions of social control; and such is 
the case. The institutions of social control associated with 
religion, government, and education have often in human 
history been such as to favor inflexibility in social customs © 
and traditions. Despotic governments, with the aid of 
authoritarian religions, have frequently been the causes 
which have blocked normal social growth. Education, also, 
in the hands of authorities of church and state, has frequently 
become one of the chief instruments by which normal social 
changes have been prevented. When education inculcates a 
philosophy of life which favors submissiveness, conformity, 
and looking to the past for all wisdom, then it becomes a: 
powerful means of preventing progress. Progress comes 
only with the plastic mind and the free spirit. 

In general, where the unity of a group is sought through 
setting up rigid uniformities, culture will become static. 
Where the unity is secured in this way, individual variations 
will be discouraged or altogether suppressed. Changes in the 
culture and structure of such a society will be excessively 
slow, unless they are brought about by external pressure. 
Normal social growth becomes practically impossible in such 
a situation. Evidently there is danger in too much uni- 
formity in a group, just as there is danger in too much 
difference. Individuality must not be suppressed or else the 
group life will be static. | 

It is manifest that we need continuity in our social life, 
but not stagnancy. The undue fostering of conservatism, 
the continued looking to the past for patterns, the failure to 
think about the future and about necessary adjustments which 
should be made, results, not in social continuity, but in social 
stagnancy. This, as we shall see, presents as great social 
dangers as the failure to maintain civilizing traditions. Social 
continuity is not inconsistent with normal social growth, 
Indeed, a healthy culture must provide equally for both. 





THE CONTINUITY OF THE GROUP 213 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Ross, Social Psychology, Chaps. XII-XV. 

BacEenot, Physics and Politics, Chaps. III, VI. 

Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man, Chap. VIII. 

Case, Outlines of Introductory Sociology, Chaps. XII, XIII. 

CuaPin, Social Evolution, Chap. VI. 

Conn, Social Heredity and Social Evolution, Chap. XI. 

Cootey, Social Organization, Chaps. VI, VIII. 

Dewey, Democracy and Education, Chap. I. 

Extitwoop, The Social Problem, Chap. II. 

Gipp1ncs, Elements of Sociology, Chap. XIV. 

GinsBerG, The Psychology of Society, Chap. VII. 

HosnouseE, Social Evolution and Political Theory, pp. 34-37; 
Development and Purpose, Chap. V; Social Development, 
Warez 

Ketxer, Societal Evolution, Chap. VII. 

Kipp, The Science of Power, Chap. X. 

Korzysski, Manhood of Humanity, Chap. I. 

MacDouca.u, The Group Mind, Chap. IV. 

Marvin, The Living Past. 

OcpurRN, Social Change, Parts I-III. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
pp. 350-356, and Chap. XI. 

Rosinson, The Mind in the Making. 

Sims, Society and Its Surplus, pp. 36-42; 123-163. 

Tozzer, Social Origins and Social Continutties, Chap. VI. 

Watias, Our Social Heritage, Chaps. I, II. 

Wonont, Elements of Folk Psychology, translated by Schaub. 

ZNANIECKI, Cultural Reality. 


CHAR BE RWIT 
CHANGES WITHIN THE GROUP: NORMAL 


Even the most static human groups undergo some change. 
The habits of living which are adjusted to the conditions of 
to-day will probably not be adjusted in their entirety to the 
conditions of to-morrow. Hence, all social groups have 
continually to adjust themselves to new conditions; and so the 
relations of individuals within the group must also change. 
Therefore, the third problem which we must consider is 
changes in group behavior. But these changes are of two 
sorts, conscious and unconscious. The former characterize 
only the higher stages of social evolution; while the latter 
characterize more the lower stages. Much has been written 
on the mechanism of unconscious social change, and there- 
fore, we need only to summarize the results; while little has 
been written on the mechanism of conscious social change, 
and hence we shall consider that problem more fully. 


Unconscious Social Change 


Three types of unconscious social change have been made 
out by sociologists and anthropologists. We do not mean 
by this phrase that such changes are necessarily unconscious, 
but only that they are not intended, not planned or purposeful. 

1. First of all, we have the changes which are brought 
about in human society by the processes of organic evolution; 
that is, by variation and natural selection. These processes 
may change the hereditary biological qualities of individuals. 
Through retrogressive variation it is possible that the heredi- 
tary qualities of a stock may deteriorate. “The same effect 
is produced by the “reversal of selection,” which preserves 

214 E 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 215 


the weak and inferior while destroying the strong and intelli- 
gent. Such reversal of selection can be brought about by 
modern warfare, by selective migration, and by noneugenic 
practices. There can scarcely be any doubt that groups may 
be weakened greatly by such practices; and many students of 
culture believe that the peoples and cultures of the past which 
have perished, have perished largely from this cause. On 
the other hand, it seems improbable that the biological 
qualities of individuals have improved within the last few 
thousand years; while culture and social organization have 
greatly advanced. Social changes have, however, been 
effected indirectly by the selection and survival of certain 
groups as a result of competition with other groups. The 
stress of natural selection in human society has hitherto fallen 
more upon groups than upon individuals; but in this way it 
has indirectly effected culture and so the pattern of group 
behavior. The result of this natural selection of groups has 
been the elimination of groups of low culture and weak 
organization, with the selection and preservation of groups 
of high culture and better organization. For example, groups 
of Europeans have almost entirely displaced in the western 
hemisphere the aboriginal groups of American Indians; and 
this has resulted in a profound social change during the last 
three hundred years in'the two Americas. Probably no such 
elimination of the aboriginal groups was, however, consciously 
planned by the invading Europeans, Intergroup struggle 
and competition, resulting usually in relatively slow selective 
changes, have, then, been factors in bringing about unintended 
changes in human groups. 

2. The second type of unconscious change in human groups 
is that which results from the failure of one generation to 
imitate exactly the patterns set by a previous generation. 
Stud€nts of language have discovered that even under modern 
conditions slow alterations in language may result from the 

failure to copy exactly the language forms of a preceding 


216 PSYCHOLOGY’ OF HUMAN SOCIETY: 


generation. Thus in English the sound of the vowels in 
some words has gradually changed from Anglo-Saxon times, 
owing to this cause. Phonetic decay in a language is largely 
due to this cause. There can scarcely be any doubt that 
it affects all human institutions and habits passed along from 
one generation to another. Imitation is the method of the 
transmission of these social uniformities, but there is always 
some loss in passing from one generation to another, and in 
time this results in considerable unintended changes, not 
simply in language but in all traditions, customs, and 
institutions. These changes proceed more rapidly among 
people whose educational facilities for handing down cultural 
achievements are very imperfect. 

3. The most frequent source of unconscious social changes, 
however, are changes in the environment, physical or social. 
Such environmental changes bring about gradually adjust- 
ments to them through unconscious habituation. The group 
may, of course, consciously adjust itself to them, but in the 
lower stages of social evolution the adjustment is brought 
about largely by unconscious habituation. Environmental 
changes which produce such unconscious changes in group 
life are of many sorts. A very common one is contact with 
a different culture. From this different culture many things 
may be borrowed and diffused throughout the group with 
very little intention of making changes. It is more a process 
of unconscious imitation. In any case, a new cultural contact 
usually necessitates more or less readjustment within the 
group, because certain elements in the new culture have to 
be taken into account by the group. Another environmental 
change which brings about many unintended changes in group | 
behavior is migration to a new physical environment. The 
Europeans living in America have kept their main European 
traditions, but on account of climate and other geographic 
influences they have made many unconscious adjustments to 
their new physical environment. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 217, 


Another factor which often brings about unconscious 
changes in a group is the increase of population. Changes 
in the mere number of individuals in a group may make 
some social custom or institution adapted to a smaller group 
unworkable. However, the factor which brings about the 
largest number of unconscious social changes is unquestion- 
ably new inventions. These may be either physical or social. 
While the making of the invention is usually a highly con- 
scious process on the part of the inventor, the adjustment 
of the group to the invention is usually largely unconscious 
or at least nondeliberate. For the most part, inventions are 
taken up by a group through a process of unconscious imita- 
tion. Inventions of new machinery and of new laws often 
bring about more or less mechanically, extensive readjust- 
ments in the relations of individuals which are quite 
unintended. Thus, for example, the invention and diffusion 
of the telephone and the automobile have resulted in changes 
in rural community life which were quite unintended, and 
these changes in turn have affected the life of the whole 
nation. 

These instances are sufficient to show that unintended, non- 
purposeful changes are still proportionately very common 
even in the most advanced civilized society. However, there 
is a tendency to bring all these unintended social changes 
under the control of consciousness and intelligence, and 
indeed the welfare of civilized societies demands that this 
be done. Conscious, collective, intelligent control is undoubt- 
edly needed for all social changes of importance. Of course, 
more or less consciousness may accompany the unintended 
changes which we have just discussed, but the consciousness 
is individual rather than social. That is to say, these changes 
are not deliberated upon by the group as a whole, discussed, 
and finally agreed to. When this latter is done we have 
what we may call a “group” or “social” consciousness. This 
- method of the control of change through group consciousness 


218 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


is very old, being found more or less in all human groups of 
which we have knowledge; but it tends to become much more 
common in the highly civilized groups, as rapid and complex 
changes are more characteristic of the advanced stages of 
social and cultural evolution, and such changes need conscicus 
group control. Hence social changes are both more rapid 
and more conscious as social evolution advances. But even 
in the most advanced human group it is probably true that all 
social changes start in an unconscious way, that they are then 
brought to consciousness, and later deliberate efforts are made 
by the group to guide and control them. In other words, 
social changes start with some change in the environment or 
in the make-up of the group which makes the old habits of 
social behavior no longer well adjusted or even altogether 
unworkable. 


Imitation and Social Change 


Many social and cultural changes, as we have already noted, 
take place through a largely unconscious process of imitation. 
We have already spoken of custom imitation as working for 
the continuity of culture. Now we have to note that the 
imitation of a different culture, of a new invention, or of any 
innovation works for social change. This sort of imitation 
has been called conventionality imitation. It plays an espe- 
cially large part in the unintended changes in modern civilized 
societies. New inventions, new ideas, and, so, new types of 
behavior are largely diffused in modern groups by this type 
of imitation. It is seen at its height in the changes in styles 
and fashions, but the imitation of contemporaries affects the 
whole of our social life and spreads variations in social 
behavior of every sort. Thus many unintended changes in 
social life as a whole may result. This is, in effect, a strong 
argument for more collective conscious control over fashion 
and other forms of conventionality imitation. There is now 
consciousness of fashion imitation on the part of individuals, 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES aid 


but no consciously adopted policy, as a rule, on the part of 
communities and nations. 

It may be well to note before we take up the mechanism of 
conscious social change that conventionality imitation in a 
group usually proceeds from the social superior to the social 
inferior. Thus the patterns of behavior in a group usually 
work down from a superior few, gradually becoming diffused 
among the mass of the group by a process of imitation. This 
fact helps us to understand the mechanism of conscious social 
change because it shows the important part which leadership 
plays in the process; for in the most highly conscious social 
changes we shall also see this principle of the imitation of the 
leader or of a social élite. There is, therefore, no hard and 
fast line to be drawn between unconscious or unintended 
changes in group behavior and conscious purposeful changes. 
In discussing the mechanism of conscious social change it 
must not be thought that all members of a group always per- 
ceive fully the situation or the meaning of accepted programs 
of action. Such perception may be limited to a smaller 
number of leaders. Even in the most highly conscious 
changes of groups the part which suggestion and imitation 
may play in the mass of the group is very considerable. The 
mass of the group participates in the “social consciousness” 
only sufficiently to understand in a general way the social 
situation and to select policies and leaders to whom are 
entrusted the execution of the policies. 


The Mechanism of Conscious Social Change 


In human groups the process of intercommunication makes . 
up the chief part of the mechanism for effecting conscious 
social changes, especially intercommunication in the form of 
oral and written language. Social life as a whole, as we 
have seen, is carried on by various forms of interstimulation 
and response between individuals. These forms of inter- 
stimulation include suggestion and imitation as well as 


220 PSYCHOLOGY “OB ELUM ANT SO CEE iy: 


communication.t By means of these forms of interstimula- 
tion the relationships of individuals are modified and even 
radically changed. Thus old adjustments between individuals 
that no longer work well are gotten rid of and new types 
of adaptation are built up; and the mechanism for accom- 
plishing this in human groups is largely the process of inter- 
communication, with suggestion and imitation playing 
subordinate roles. If human groups had no need of acting 
together and of making common adjustments to their environ- 
ment, such definite forms of communication as oral and 
written language would never have been developed. They 
are means for perfecting conscious coadaptive processes in 
human groups. In other words, the mechanism of inter- 
communication plays the same part as an organ of adaptation 
in group life which the nervous system plays as an organ of 
adaptation in the individual. The process of intercommunica- 
tion conveys the stimulation which a part of the group receives 
from individual to individual, and thus the whole group is 
enabled to change its behavior. In other words, the forms of 
communication have their origin in the needs of, and exist for 
the sake of perfecting, group life. 

Let us outline in a few words how intercommunication 
works to mediate and control the process of readjustment in 
a human group. At least five different processes may be 
pointed out which are always in some degree at work in a 
process of conscious social change: public criticism, public 
discussion, the formation of a group or public opinion, the 
selection of leaders, and social action. Public criticism is 
a process of discrimination of whatever is wrong or unad- 
justed in the habits of the group. In other words, public 
criticism marks the bad working of some social custom or 


1The imitation school of social psychologists has attempted to 
reduce communication to a suggestion-imitation process; but psy- 
chologists no longer accept this view. See Dewey, Democracy and 
Education, pp. 4-7; also Follett, The New State, Chap, III. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 221 


institution. It discriminates the elements which are working 
badly, and these discriminations are communicated to the 
whole group from one individual to another. Discussion of 
a situation then develops in a group. At first this discussion 
will be of a critical nature, but in its later development it looks 
to a solution of the problem. New ideas are formed upon the 
basis of this discussion. The useful elements in the old situa- 
tion are mentally discriminated, and certain ideas or views 
are finally selected as the solution of the problem. Thus we 
have the formation of a public opinion in the group which is 
a basis for a new policy of group behavior, a new coordina- 
tion of the group. In order to carry out this judgment of 
the group, which we have called its public opinion, the group 
selects certain individuals that are judged to be especially 
fitted to lead in group action. 

It may be objected that such a process of conscious social 
change is realized fully only in a democratic society. In reply 
it may be pointed out that this process has characterized, 
more or less, all human groups from primitive times, and 
that probably the chief argument for democracy, rightly 
understood, is that it frees and develops the normal process 
of conscious social change, making it the standard for all 
social change. 

We should expect, therefore, that the most perfect exam- 
ples of the mechanism for effecting conscious social change 
would be found in modern democratic nations, especially in 
their methods of effecting political changes. In the United 
States, for example, preceding a presidential election, those 
elements in the population who have perceived the bad 
working of the policies of the administration voice their 
dissatisfaction through the public press, through public 
meetings, and through private conversation. Country-wide 
discussion results. There is a gradual formation of a public 
opinion, a formulation of party programs, and a selection 
of leaders. The issue is finally decided by a majority or 


222 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


plurality vote, this latter device being a relatively modern 
invention, as primitive and barbarous communities usually 
decide matters only through a unanimous vote. This process 
of effecting a change in the political administration illustrates 
in an organized and formalized way the method of highly 
conscious change in society generally;? only the machinery 
of voting and of deciding by majority has not been extended 
to all spheres of social activity. 

Another illustration without the use of voting machinery 
and where the process occupied a much longer space of time 
may be found in the change which the early Christian church 
effected in European family life. This change was undoubt- 
edly a conscious change, though it took centuries to bring it 
about. It was preceded by severe criticism of the family life 
of classic antiquity, it was accomplished by continued discus- 
sion of the problem of the family, by the gradual formation 
of a public opinion which was on the side of the church, and 
by a selection of political and ecclesiastical leaders in accord 
with the church policy. The matter may be said to have 
reached a final decision with the making of marriage one of 
the sacraments and with the establishment of the indissolu- 
bility of marriage in the canon law. Here it will be noted 
there was no vote and no organized or formalized process of 
making a group decision. The decision was reached, however, 
when the customs and traditions of the peoples were changed. 

The significance of the descriptions just given of the 
method of conscious social change will become evident as we 
proceed. For the vital parts of this mechanism are essential 
to normal social life. Before we proceed to elaborate details, 
however, it may be well to call the attention of the student to 





2In change by authority, the conscious change is effected by 
the same mechanism (by criticism, discussion, etc.) in the small group 
which exercises more or less autocratic power (see p. 139) over 
the larger group. The mass of the larger group are, of course, 
in a passive or submissive attitude and do not actively participate 
in the process of change. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 223 


the fact that this normal growth or change in a social group 
is very like the process of mental growth in the individual. 
This is necessarily so because the group is made up of indi- 
viduals, and functions through the minds of individuals. The 
individual develops his mental life by a process of constant 
readjustment to his environment, by the constant replacement 
of habits which no longer work well by habits which are 
adjusted. In this process of building up new habits the 
individual uses the mental processes of attention, discrimina- 
tion, the association of ideas, judgments of truth or falsity, 
and the like. So in the group the processes of public criticism, 
public discussion, the formation of a group opinion or judg- 
ment, the selection of new policies and of leaders, are used in 
building up new customs and institutions. They are so 
many steps in the process of the conscious readjustment of 
group habits. Obviously, the process of communication is 
fundamental to all of these other processes. Hence the 
importance in social life of the opportunities and means of 
free intercommunication. Let us also note that just as in the 
individual we find the highest consciousness in the transition 
from one habit to another, so in the group we find the greatest 
use of all of this machinery of mental interstimulation and 
intercommunication in the transition from one group habit to 
another, from one form of institution to another. The 
consciousness of the group, as well as individual conscious- 
ness, evidently centers about the fact of change or adaptation 
in social life. The process of intercommunication mediates 
the process of group adaptation. 


Social Self-Consciousness 


In a sense all consciousness is social, that is, the particular 
content of individual consciousness is derived from the social 
environment, or at least conditioned by that environment. 
The phrase “social consciousness,” however, is used in several 
senses by sociologists and social psychologists. Professor 


224 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Cooley uses the term as the opposite of self-consciousness,*® 
that is, for the awareness of others rather than of self. Out 
of this awareness of others grows, of course, an awareness of 
the group as a whole and of its relation to othey groups and 
to its environment in general. From this consciousness of the 
group naturally arises social consciousness in the narrower 
sense of the term, namely, a conscious state which is a 
heightened state of individual consciousness, in which each 
individual in the group is more or less conscious of the relation 
of his activites to the activities of the group as a whole. 
Social consciousness in this sense might better be called 
“social self-consciousness.” Such consciousness usually 
arises when the group as a whole has to perform some more 
or less difficult task, and it is evidently a process which has 
to do with social change. It involves a heightening, both of 
the individual’s consciousness of himself and of his con- 
sciousness of others; and in this way conscious control on 
the part of the group over any change in its adjustments 
is made possible. 

Let us take the municipal ownership of some public utility 
as illustrating this social or group self-consciousness. The 
group as a whole may decide to take over and operate such 
a utility without being highly conscious of all the adjustments 
which are involved in the step if such municipal operation 
is to be successful. Hence the municipality may not succeed 
well in the conduct of its enterprise. Scandals arise in 
connection with public ownership. Public criticism and 
public discussion take place. Gradually the mass of citizens 
becomes educated regarding the matter, the group as a whole 
becomes highly conscious of the adjustments involved, leaders 
are chosen, decisions reached, and the probability is that 
thereafter the community will be more successful in the man- 
agement of its enterprise. It is evident that such success is 





8 Cooley, Social Organization, pp. 8-12. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 225 


gained only through the mass of the citizens devoting a certain 
part of their time, energy, and consciousness to the conduct of 
public business; and that continued success can be assured 
only if this continues to be done, or if a strong tradition can 
be established that the business should be conducted in a cer- 
tain way which will assure success. 

Now it is evident that this group self-consciousness has to 
do with the adaptation of the group as a whole to some 
situation, just as individual consciousness has to do with 
adaptation. It is only by developing such a group conscious- 
ness that the activities of the members of the group can be 
accurately coordinated when rapid and complex changes are 
required in the group behavior. The more complex groups, 
therefore, are apt to show more group consciousness of this 
sort. The city group usually shows more than the rural 
group, and the civilized group more than the uncivilized. 
Such a state of social self-consciousness makes possible better 
collective adaptation of all members of a group. Hence the 
desirability of developing this social self-consciousness to the 
highest degree, because it is only thus that human groups can 
gain collective control over the conditions of their existence. 
The social sciences themselves are but one manifestation of 
the increasing development of social self-consciousness, and 
are means for the stimulation of such consciousness for the 
end of collective control over the conditions of life. Other 
means of bringing about social self-consciousness are found 
in all the forms of oral and written language and all means 
of intercommunication, such as the press, the telegraph, the 
telephone, public discussions, and the like. All of these are 
means for developing social self-consciousness and getting it 
to function in the control of social behavior. The whole 
process of developing social consciousness, in other words, is 
one concerned with social change or the readjustments of 
social habits. From this point of view we shall be able to 
understand the meaning and functioning in our social life of 


226 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


such processes as public discussion, public opinion, and social 
leadership. 


The Function of Public Discussion 


Public discussion in a group has two functions: first, the 
criticism of habits, institutions, policies, and social patterns; 
and secondly, the construction of new social patterns upon 
which to build new habits, institutions, and policies. Discus- 
sion works in the social life, therefore, very much as the 
processes of discrimination and association of ideas work in 
the individual mind. Its first function, as public criticism, 
is to pick out those elements in habits, institutions, and 
policies which do not work well. It is discussion of this sort, 
as Bagehot says, which breaks the bonds of custom.* It 
serves as an instrument to break up old habits and institutions 
in a group because it points out wherein they work poorly. It 
undermines the confidence of the group in the habits, institu- 
tions, or policies criticized. It, therefore, prepares for change. 

If discussion is allowed to proceed, the next step in its 
development is to discriminate the different elements in the 
social situation, to pick out those which are still valuable 
and which may be utilized in the construction of a new social 
habit, as well as to reject those which no longer work well. 
This constructive phase of public discussion always develops 
in social groups which have learned to settle their problems 
by discussion. Probably no phase of the social process more 
clearly illustrates the truth that social development is a learn- 
ing process; for the process of public discussion is a process 
in which the members of the group mutually educate one 
another. They not only convey to one another perceptions 
of maladjustment, but also suggested solutions of the 
problem involved. The whole process not only puts a 
premium upon intelligence, but develops intelligence in the 


4Bagehot, Physics and Politics, Chap. V. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 227 


members of the group. Every member of the group is 
educated in the concerns of the group, and awakened to 
appreciate the situation in which the group finds itself. The 
process is evidently one which is socializing as well as 
educative.> Leaders emerge who direct the discussion. The 
individual who can point out what is wrong and how the 
old elements can be readjusted in a way to meet the demands 
of the new situation is the one who can usually get a hearing. 
Thus all available ideas in the group may be compared, 
associated, and combined, until the stage is reached when 
the group is ready to form a rational judgment. 

The process of public discussion may, of course, go on 
through various devices. It may go on largely through the 
press, especially through newspapers. It is usually more 
effective, however, when it goes on orally in face-to-face 
groups, such as public assemblies or discussion groups 
formed by friends and associates. The advantage of the 
face-to-face group is that there is easier interchange of ideas 
and hence easier understanding of them. As discussion, at 
its best, is a cooperative process in which there is action and 
reaction between minds, it is improbable that the public press 
as a medium of discussion can ever supplant the public 
assembly and the discussion group. In groups which settle 
their problems by discussion it is highly important, therefore, 
that the public assembly and the face-to-face discussion group 
be kept alive. 

It is evident that if the process of public discussion is to 
be effective in finding solutions for group problems and in 
forming group opinion, freedom of thought and freedom of 
speech must be preserved. When public criticism of social 
habits, institutions, and policies is not tolerated, it is evident 
that their faults cannot be brought to the attention of the 





5 Discussion will have this effect, however, only if the condi- 
tions of freedom and tolerance mentioned on pages 228 and 230 
are maintained. 


228 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


group. Tolerance of criticism is, therefore, the first condi- 
tion for the effective working of the machinery of conscious 
social change, or rational social adjustment. It is only 
through tolerance of new ideas and through freedom of speech 
and of the press, that there can be the greatest opportunity 
for the codperative working of the intelligence of the whole 
group in building up new habits, institutions, and policies. 
Through free public discussion not only can grievances of 
individuals and classes be brought to public attention, but the 
richest results of experience can be brought to bear upon a 
given social situation. Consequently, under such circum- 
stances there is the greatest chance of a wise and rational 
solution of the practical problem involved. It is not an 
accident, therefore, that societies which have maintained the 
best conditions for free public discussion of their problems 
have, in human history, been not only most progressive, but 
most apt to show normal, uninterrupted social development. 


The Formation and Function of Public Opinion 


By public opinion we mean the more or less rational, 
collective judgment formed by a group regarding a situation. 
It is formed, as we have seen, by the action and reaction of 
many individual judgments. It implies not so much that 
uniformity of opinion has been reached by all members of the 
group, or even by a majority, as that a certain trend and 
direction of the opinions and judgments of the individual 
members has been reached. Of course, there is a certain 
core of agreement reached among the individuals of a group, 
or at least among a majority, but there is no absolute 
uniformity of judgment. As Professor Cooley says, public 
opinion is “an organization of separate, individual judgments, 
a cooperative product of communication and reciprocal in- 
fluence.” ® It is an organization and co6rdination of individual 





6 Cooley, Social Organization, p. 121. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 229 


opinions and judgments. Therefore, it does not necessarily 
represent, as has often been claimed, the intelligence and 
judgment of the lowest member of the group, or even of the 
mediocrity of its average individuals. As it is formed by the 
coordination and organization of individual judgments, it 
may well represent the matured judgment of leaders and 
specialists, after these have reacted with their public. 

Public opinion should be sharply distinguished from 
popular emotion and public sentiment. Popular emotion and 
public sentiment may exist in groups in which there has been 
no discussion, but public opinion, as it is a more or less 
rational group judgment, cannot. Popular emotion depends 
for its formation upon the contagion of feeling. It is usually 
highly irrational, and is associated with emotional action on 
the part of the group, which is rarely constructive. Public 
sentiment is the mass of feelings associated with the well- 
established habits of the group. It is usually conservative, 
while public opinion is concerned with social changes, with 
making new social adjustments, and if formed through proper 
public discussion is constructive and creative. Being formed 
by a discussion process, it is the more or less rational judg- 
ment of the group. Much injury has been done to democracy 
by confusing public opinion with public sentiment and popular 
emotion. Many of the criticisms directed against the rule of 
public opinion are really directed against the rule of public 
sentiment and popular emotion. However, unless public 
opinion is rightly formed, it may also represent an irrational 
judgment. 

The control of social change by what we call public or 
group opinion is not wholly modern. Savage and barbarous 
societies to some extent use the same means to control their 
group adjustments. Thus the clans of North American 
Indians frequently held public discussions to decide matters 
of tribal importance. But in savage, barbarous, and semi- 
civilized cultures the opinion of the group was so bound by 


230 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tradition and custom that public opinion in the modern sense 
could get no great development. Moreover, the principle of 
unanimity followed by such groups left no great freedom 
for the formation of public opinion. It is evident that habit, 
custom, and tradition, as well as the emotions and feelings 
of a group, may interfere with the free formation and 
functioning of public opinion. 

Whether control by public opinion will be control by the 
worst or best minds in the group will depend upon the circum- 
stances of its formation. In the first place, if public opinion 
is to be rational, it must be formed, as we have already 
seen, under conditions of freedom. Freedom of intercom- 
munication and the encouragement of freedom of thinking 
are necessary for the formation of a public opinion of the 
highest degree of rationality; for only under such conditions 
can all the facts be brought to light, ideas compared, and 
individual judgments tested. Professor Giddings has rightly 
insisted that the highest type of public opinion depends for 
its developments upon such conditions.’ Low types of public 
opinion may, of course, exist even in groups where free dis- 
cussion is forbidden. In such groups a public opinion may 
develop through more or less secret means of communication, 
but it is usually of a very low order of rationality; and hence 
it is either powerless to effect social changes, or, if it succeeds 
in effecting them, they are apt to be unwise. Under condi- 
tions of full and free discussion truth will have the best chance 
to prevail and public opinion will be powerful, because there 
will be general confidence in its rationality. The proper func- 
tioning of public opinion in a social group demands, therefore, 
the fullest development of the mechanism of intercommuni- 
cation. In societies in which public opinion is thus developed 
and is allowed to function freely, it is on the whole one of the 
best safeguards against social catastrophe, since it controls 





7 Giddings, The Principles of Sociology, p. 138. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 231 


social changes in accordance with the mind of the group. It 
represents the free collective judgment of the group as a 
whole and the most rational attempt which the group is 
capable of making to control its own actions. 

In the second place, if public opinion is to be rational, it 
must be formed under conditions which will favor the leader- 
ship of men of the highest intelligence. Only as public 
opinion is formed with proper appreciation of expert knowl- 
edge and of intelligent leadership, can it develop the highest 
degree of rationality. A great deal will depend upon the 
traditions of the group; upon the appreciation which the 
group has of the judgment of the expert or of the superior 
mind. It has often been remarked that the average intelli- 
gence cannot be expected to deal with the complex problems 
presented by modern social and political life. This is, of 
course, true; but the average intelligence is fully capable of 
being taught to appreciate the value of expert knowledge and 
superior intelligence. The mass of the people can be taught 
to appreciate good art, for example, though very few of them 
can be taught to be good artists; so the masses may be taught 
to appreciate wise social and political leadership and to 
coordinate their opinions with those of wise leaders, though 
the masses may not be capable of leading themselves. The 
rule of public opinion need not be the rule of ignorance, 
provided the group as a whole is educated to a point of 
appreciating intelligence and expert knowledge. Then the 
intelligence of public opinion will depend upon the intelligence 
of the leaders of the group. But since in democratic groups 
leaders are selected by the people, much obviously depends 
upon the education of the masses. The more that intelligence, 
and especially intelligence regarding social and political ques- 
tions, can be developed in the masses, the more apt the masses 
are to seek for leaders with expert knowledge. The degree 
of rationality in public opinion will, therefore, depend upon 
three things: (1) the general organization of the group, as 


weo2 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


to ease of communication, individual freedom of expression, 
etc.; (2) the general level of intelligence in the group, espe- 
cially its system of social and political education; (3) the 
quality of its leadership, not only as to expert knowledge, 
but also as to efficiency in action and moral character. 
Under this last point we may note that there is a third 
thing needed in democratic societies if public opinion is to be 
rational and powerful; and that is it must be formed under 
conditions of disinterestedness on the part of those who act 
. as leaders. If selfish interests are allowed to control the 
channels of communication, if even those channels become so 
commercialized that people lose their confidence in them, 
there is little chance of public opinion showing a high degree 
of intelligence. It is important, therefore, that in our whole 
social life, between nations as well as between classes and 
individuals, channels of intercommunication be kept not only 
free, but also uncorrupted and even untainted by suspicion of 


corruption. Now these channels in modern civilization are 


mainly through the press. If the press is commercial, if its 
news service is tainted by suspicion of corruption in any 
form, if it is made to serve individual or class interests 
rather than to serve social welfare, it will fail to create the 
highest type of public opinion. Much responsibility in the 
complex social groups of modern civilization evidently rests 
upon the press as an organ for the formation and guidance 
of public opinion. How to secure a press with an adequate 
sense of its social responsibility is a problem. Means and 
methods yet remain to be devised by which the press can 
be kept free, and yet at the same time be brought to realize 
in the highest degree its social responsibility. Like the 
church and the school, the press must evidently be left 
freedom if it is to function efficiently. Yet owing to its 
commercialism, to class and party bias, and to its ignorance, 
it must be admitted that, even in the most advanced civilized 
societies of the present, the press is still far from being an 





NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 233 


ideal instrument for the formation and guidance of rational 
public opinion. If there is a way out of this difficulty, the 
development of a professional ethics and of a high type of 
professional training among journalists must play a large 
part. In this way it may be possible to establish a press 
upon a social service rather than upon a commercial basis. 
From what has been said it may seem as 1f democracy, 
or the rule of public opinion, is a hopeless counsel of per- 
fection. It is no more so, however, than the development 
of the intelligence of the individual. The rule of public 
opinion is the rule of the group mind. It is inevitable in 
all higher social development. Just as the individual is bound 
to strive for freedom and to rule his own behavior by his 
own judgment, so the group is bound to strive to control its 
behavior by its own judgment. In other words, democracy 
is inevitable if progressive social evolution continues. All 
social life is bound to come more and more under the sway 
of group consciousness and collective control. It is perhaps 
a mistake to trace the origins of customs, laws, and institu- 
tions back to the public opinion of primitive groups, because 
customs and institutions have their origin in the lower stages 
of social evolution in instinctive reactions and in some cases 
in accidental adjustments on the part of primitive society. 
But public opinion is now coming to be more and more 
creative of customs, laws, and institutions. The rational 
judgment of human groups is now beginning to modify pro- 
foundly all human institutions. In other words, public 
Opinion is coming to be the decisive element in customs, 
laws, and institutions. It is playing an increasing part in 
controlling all social adjustments. The problem before 
modern democratic society, therefore, is how public opinion 
can be developed to the highest degree of rationality as well 
as of power. The future of our civilization evidently depends 
upon the solution of this question; for it is the question of 
how far social self-consciousness can be trusted to guide and 


234 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


control group behavior. We shall have to take up this prob- 
lem again when we consider the part which intelligence may 
play in social life. 


The Function of Social Leadership 


Animal groups show leadership but very imperfectly 
developed. This is doubtless because they have few rapid, 
complex adjustments to make. Human groups, on the other 
hand, shape themselves in their thinking and acting through 
the pattern or example furnished by some leader. They show 
a high development of ‘social leadership; and leadership 
increases steadily in importance as we ascend from the simpler 
primitive groups to the complex groups of the modern world. 
On account of the difficulty of the adjustments which they 
have to make human groups have to organize themselves 
about definite leaders, men who take the initiative in thought 
or in action. The method regularly used by human groups 
when they have to adjust themselves to new and complex 
situations is to copy the action-patterns proposed or illustrated 
by a few individuals. These become the leaders of the group. 
Without leadership human groups would show no more 
capacity to make wise adjustments than their least intelligent 
members. But by coordinating themselves about a leader, 
who thinks ahead and sets an example, human groups become 
capable of adjustments of the highest.degree of intelligence. 
Hence the supreme importance of leadership in human 
groups. Nothing great in the way of progress is or ever will 
be achieved by human groups without leadership. The only 
thing they can do without leadership is to act upon an 
instinctive or habitual plane, and such action does not result 
in progress. Hence all the higher work of civilization is the 
result of pioneering minds who go on ahead and blaze the 
trail to further collective achievements. 

Human groups have always recognized that certain indi- 
viduals are better fitted than others in the group to cope with 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 235 


new situations. Individuals vary in their capacities and 
abilities, and it is this variability of the individual which 
makes progress possible. The traditional knowledge, beliefs, 
or habits, of the group may vary in their expression in 
certain individuals in such a way that it is an advantage 
to the group if the variation is copied. Such variations 
usually manifest themselves in exceptional individuals whose 
mental capacities are probably somewhat superior to the 
average members of the group. These are the persons with 
the capacity for initiative and leadership. They are not 
necessarily geniuses, but show superior ability in thinking, 
in talking, or in acting. In part this superior ability is the 
result of training and experience, but in part, also, it is the 
result of inborn qualities. It is the acceptance of the leader- 
ship of such individuals which makes the process of conscious 
change result in superior adjustments in human groups. 
Creative personality is a fact in social life, the influence of 
which we should never overlook, even though explicit refer- 
ence is omitted for the sake of brevity or of scientific 
form. 

From the sociological point of view it must be emphasized 
that the social group always selects its leaders through one 
way or another. It may select them wisely or unwisely. It 
may select upon the basis of custom and tradition, or even 
upon the basis of mere impulse. But it may also make a 
more or less intelligent choice of its leaders. There can be 
no leadership, at any rate, without the adhesion of the group 
to its leader. The probability of the wise selection of a leader 
on the part of a group is greatly increased where the freedom 
of the selection is untrammeled. This obviously depends 
upon the freedom of choice, of discussion, and of expression, 
which we have emphasized as the essential part of the mech- 
anism of conscious social change. When the conditions for 
rational judgment on the part of the whole group are kept 
favorable by the encouragement of critical thinking and by 


236 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the free interchange of ideas, there is the best chance of 
the selection of the fittest men. But beyond this, a group that 
wishes competent leaders must find means of training and 
selecting men in advance before the situation arises in which 
their leadership will be needed. Groups that thus find and 
train their leaders in advance have an immense advantage 
over groups that wait for leaders to turn up by chance. We 
have every reason to believe that leadership is not a product 
of chance, but a product of social training, social opportunity, 
and social stimulation, as well as of conscious social selection 
of individuals with naturally superior qualities. 

The leader is, then, the one who is selected by the group 
to carry out its judgment. Yet social groups are always 
in continual reaction with their leaders. Whatever power 
may be entrusted to the leader is, therefore, always more or 
less limited by the reaction of the group. Instances of giving 
absolute powers to group leaders in some lines, especially 
military and governmental, are not unknown in human his- 
tory, though absolutism, as a rule, has usually grown up by 
slow stages after successive delegations of power by a people 
to their ruler. Thus in time the habit and tradition of a 
leader with absolute powers gets established. The most unfor- 
tunate thing about such despotic leadership is that sooner 
or later it comes to be not truly representative of the will 
of the group. The most socially fortunate condition exists 
when leader and group are closely and voluntarily coordinated. 
When there is constant action and reaction between the leader 
and the group, the outcome is truly representative of the 
group’s judgment and will. Under such conditions we have 
what we may call democratic leadership. The democratic 
leader is essentially a teacher of his group. He leads, not 
by compulsion, by artifice, or by fear, but by persuasion, 
and, if he is of the highest type, by rational persuasion. 
In this case the whole group is educated to accept the pat- 
terns of action proposed by the leader. The democratic 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 237 


method of leadership and of selecting leaders is evidently 
superior to the autocratic. 


Qualities Needed for Leadership 


The success of enforcing a new policy or building up a 
new institution or social custom will largely depend upon 
the type of leader chosen. No problem is of greater practical 
importance for a group, therefore, than the problem of secur- 
ing the highest type of leadership. Emerson said: “An 
institution is the lengthened shadow of a great man.” While 
human institutions as we find them have usually had many 
“great men,’ or leaders, yet great men are always needed 
to carry out the will of the group when it responds to some 
social situation, which, from a scientific point of view, may be 
regarded as having more to do with the creation of the new 
policy or institution than the great man. Nevertheless, the 
leader is indispensable in consciously directed social changes 
and movements, and the better fitted he is for his task, the 
greater the capacity he has, the better are the chances of 
successful social achievement. Masterful leadership, it must 
be admitted, is necessary for the success of any great social 
movement. , 

What then are the qualities needed for masterful leader- 
ship? Evidently the leader must be fitted by capacity and 
training to guide the group in a choice of a policy and then 
to carry it out; but more than this, he must know the condi- 
tions which surround the group and which prevail among its 
members; he must know human nature, how to handle men, 
how to get them to cooperate and to coordinate their 
activities with his own. Evidently some of the qualities 
needed on the part of the social leader are: a high degree of 
social intelligence, a high degree of sympathy with his group, 
an efficient social imagination, moral and physical courage, 
capacity for enthusiasm, and, perhaps above all, complete 
consecration to the cause which he represents. It is generally 


238 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


true that human groups seek leaders with such qualities. 
Leaders with meaner qualities of trickery and demagoguery 
may prevail for a time; but groups intelligent enough to 
understand their own welfare sooner or later reject such 
leaders. But leaders with the higher qualities, and especially 
with just the combination of physical, mental, and moral 
qualities needed, may not be available unless the group has 
carefully selected and trained them in advance. 

The question of leadership in human groups, therefore, 
turns out to be a matter concerning which there may be 
a high degree of social control. There is probably no lack 
of competent individuals in every human group with ample 
natural endowments for leadership. Professor Lester F. 
Ward showed that the amount of leadership material in 
populations is much larger than is popularly supposed, and 
that the main problem before civilization is to discover this 
talent and train it.6 In other words, if we found and utilized 
all the available natural talent for leadership which is latent 
in human beings, there would be abundant competent leader- 
ship for every phase of our civilization. Higher institutions 
of learning are supposed to find and train leaders. They 
are doing so fairly efficiently along materialistic lines, but 
along lines which concern the higher social, political, and 
economic problems they, as yet, perform their task in a 
comparatively inefficient manner. It is needless to add that 
this is a matter of the utmost practical importance, not 
only because the capacity of civilized peoples for social prog- 
ress might be increased almost indefinitely with expert 
leadership, but because the security of our civilization depends 
-upon such leadership. 


Group Action 


We have already discussed group action and the group 
will as the coordination of the activities of the individual 


8 Ward, Applied Sociology, Part II. 


OE 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 239 


members of a group in a given direction.® The social judg- 
ment reached in public opinion normally issues in some 
collective action. There must, therefore, be some method 
of reaching a decision for group action after public discus- 
sion and the formation of a public opinion. The primitive 
democracies of savage and barbarous society almost always 
reached their decisions by unanimous agreement. But such 
unanimity is not possible in the great, complex societies of 
modern civilization. Hence in most matters such societies are 
content to reach a decision through the agreement of a 
majority, large or small. Voting is a device to determine on 
which side the majority is. Policies and leaders are usually 
selected by a majority vote. This is especially true in 
political matters. Representative leaders are selected by a 
majority and commissioned to carry out the policy which the 
majority represents or to set in action the laws which the 
majority has determined upon. The minority acquiesces 
because it wishes to preserve the unity of the group. The 
popular will in such cases represents, not uniformity of will 
in all the members of the group or even in the majority, but 
rather a trend, an organization, of the many volitional atti- 
tudes of the members of the group, so that they issue in 
definite, unified group action. 

Such methods of reaching social decisions are, of course, 
characteristic only of modern societies and even in these 
they are not found in all phases of the group life. Groups 
depend for unity of action in these other phases upon various 
informal means, such as suggestion, imitation, the pressure 
of group opinion, and the like. When unified action is 
secured through these means, it is because a vast majority 
of the group have the same or nearly the same volitional 
attitudes. Group action in this case has the advantage 
that it is supported by the mass of the group. 





_ 9®See Chap. V. 


240 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF AIUMAN?ASOGIETY 


On the other hand, when a group decision is reached 
through a bare majority, there is always danger that the 
will of the group will not be behind the change which is to | 
be made in some policy or institution, and the whole situation 
will remain, therefore, unstable. This means that a definite 
choice has not really been made by the group, but only a 
compromise which satisfies none of the different classes or 
parties. The enactment of prohibition in the United States 
illustrates the difficulties which confront complex groups 
which proceed to make great social changes upon the principle 
of majority rule. What is needed in such cases is the more 
adequate development of social consciousness regarding the 
situation by the group as a whole. With more fully devel- 
oped social consciousness a social decision may be reached 
which is truly representative of the will of the group. When 
this is done, public opinion becomes established as a group 
tradition, and the social changes resulting settle down into 
social habits and become embodied in the customs and insti- 
tutions of the group. Thus the process of conscious social 
change is completed. 


The Alternation of Critical and Constructive Periods in 

History 

The life conditions of human groups constantly change. 
Hence periods of relative stability in social habits and insti- 
tutions are necessarily followed by periods of change, of 
breaking down, and of possible disorganization. These again 
are regularly followed by periods of reconstruction of habits 
and institutions, and so, periods of stability. But these 
periods need not coincide for all classes of institutions. A 
period of breaking down and of change in one class of social 
habits is not infrequently synchronous with a period of rela- 
tive stability or upbuilding in another class. The complexity 
of civilized societies makes it impossible for movements 
toward change to go on equally in all phases of social life 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 241 


at once, hence it is possible for societies to be progressing 
in some respects and retrogressing in others. However, on 
account of the interdependence of all the phases of the social 
life, the instability of one set of institutions may greatly 
affect the stability of all other institutions. Accordingly, 
historians have frequently noted what they term “critical” 
and “constructive,” or “organic,” periods in history. 

Now periods of social change are, as we have already seen, 
necessarily periods of criticism and of disorganization; but if 
the social life is normal, if a social group retains its normal 
powers of readjustment, these are succeeded by periods of 
construction and of relative stability in institutions. Histo- 
rians, especially Lamprecht, have recognized these facts, often 
without giving adequate recognition to the complexity of 
culture. Lamprecht, for example, finds that human societies 
are always organized about some dominant idea, which he 
calls ‘a psychic dominant,’ ?° but which we should call a 
“pattern idea” or a “social pattern.’”’ These dominant pattern 
ideas decay when the conditions of life change. Hence there 
results, Lamprecht tells us, a period of individualism and 
dissociation. After a time some new pattern idea emerges 
which becomes the “psychic dominant,” or pattern, of a new 
historical epoch, and there results a period of synthesis, 
reorganization, and stability. According to Lamprecht this 
is the universal mechanism of the social or historical process. 
Substantially the theory is correct; but three criticisms may 
be made of Lamprecht’s statement. The rhythm which we 
find in human society is the rhythm of habit and adaptation 
which we have been discussing. This Lamprecht fails to 
recognize. Again, modern civilized societies have not one 
single psychic dominant, or pattern idea, but many. To be 
sure, there may be a few around which the whole life of the 
group is particularly organized, but the complexity of the 





10Lamprecht, What Is History? Chaps. III, IV. 


242 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


pattern of modern civilization, and even its conflicting ele- 
ments, should be clearly recognized.** Finally, there is no 
such clear distinction, for the whole life of complex groups 
of modern times, between periods of dissociation and periods 
of reconstruction, as Lamprecht seems to imply. To some 
extent dissociation may be going on in one part of the life 
of a complex group, while reconstruction is going on in 
another part. Nevertheless, it is true that some epochs are 
characterized more by dissociation and others more by recon- 
struction or stability. The epochs which are characterized 
largely by dissociation we may call periods of transition. 


Confusion in Periods of Transition 


A certain amount of confusion may be regarded as normal 
in the transition from one type of social habit or institution 
to another. Just as it is impossible for individuals to make 
changes in their methods of living without possibility of 
confusion, so it is impossible for a group. It is all the 
more impossible for a group because it takes some time for 
a large mass of individuals all to discover the new stimuli, 
patterns, and values which are necessary for the building up 
of a new way of living. In periods of transition in any 
phase of our social life we must, therefore, expect some 
confusion as regards the patterns and values by which men 
control their conduct. If the period is one of general social 
change, or transition, there may be widespread confusion as 
to the ideals and values of life. Such is evidently the present 
condition of Western civilization, and even to some extent 
of the whole world. It is this confusion as to what ideals 
and standards should be taken for patterns for social action 
which constitutes, from a psychological standpoint, the 





11 There should, of course, be a harmonious synthesis, or as 
Professor Ross says, a “balance” brought about of these conflicting 
elements for the best social life. See Chap. XIII and also Ross, 
Principles of Sociology, Chap. LVII. 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 243 


peculiar problem of our civilization, and hence the core of 
most of our social problems. 

For example, the confusion in respect to family life in 
Western civilization at the present time illustrates this. The 
old authoritarian family of past generations will no longer 
work under modern conditions. As yet, however, the mass of 
the people have been unable to find any new pattern or ideal 
sufficient for the reconstruction of the family upon a stable 
basis. There is uncertainty and confusion as to what the new 
type of family life should be. Hence the family as an 
institution is in a state of confusion and disintegration to-day. 
This condition should disappear in time, provided our civiliza- 
tion retains its power of making new and superior adjust- 
ments. The danger of such social confusion accompanying 
the transition from one type of institution to another is that 
the confusion may continue too long, and that there may 
take place reversion to a lower type of social adjustment. 
Only the leadership and effort of the more intelligent mem- 
bers of a group can prevent this tendency toward cultural 
reversion. 


Radicalism and Conservatism 


The alternation of habit and adaptation in group life 
expresses itself in individual character. Some individuals in 
a group show more of the habitual or static aspect of social 
life, while others show more of the adaptive or dynamic 
aspect. The individuals who adhere to the old habits of their 
group we call “conservatives,’’ while the individuals who are 
in favor of change are usually called “liberals” and “radicals.” 
This is due partly to difference in individual organization and 
temperament and partly to the fact that individuals are 
exposed unequally to the conditions which favor social 
change. Whether particular persons in a group are conserva- 
tives or progressives will depend both upon their temperament 
and their individual social environment. Usually, however, 


244 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the influence of the social environment of the individual, and 
especially of his education, will be found to be most impor- 
tant. Those persons for whom existing institutions work 
badly will, under ordinary circumstances, become the advo- 
cates of social change; while those who find existing institu- 
tions personally advantageous tend to become conservative 
and to oppose change. 

The absurdity of either extreme radicalism or extreme 
conservatism in social life should be manifest. No society 
could long exist in which habit wholly predominated, which 
was wholly static, or at least it would expose itself to grave 
dangers. On the other hand, no society that is in a constant 
process of readjustment, always without a settled condition 
of its institutions, could possibly achieve a satisfactory life. 
The most wholesome social life is evidently the one in which 
there is a just balance maintained between conservative tend- 
encies, on the one hand, and radical or progressive 
tendencies, on the other. Both tendencies are necessary for’ 
that wholesome alternation of static condition and change, 
habit and adaptation, which aS the rhythm of normal 
social development. 

Perhaps this balanced ponttde of mind may best be de- 
scribed as a true “liberalism.” The contrast between it and 
conservatism has been stated by a leading progressive 
thinker of the present in the following way: ‘The conserva- 
tive fears greatly to disturb or change the existing order; 
he intrenches himself in its traditions; he is sometimes apt 
to defend its abuses. The liberal values it as a high stage 
already reached in the eternal pilgrimage of mankind, but 
looks on toward the next stage. He accepts progress; he 
believes in light and ever more light; he works for the 
continued betterment of this great society. What makes him 
a liberal is liberality toward new ideas and toward opponents, 
readiness to hear reason, and anxiety not to be misled by 
prejudice, nor to fall back on mere authority or coercion.” 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 248 


Another name for liberalism of this sort is the “scientific 
attitude.”’ 


Individualism and Collectivism 


Of a somewhat similar nature are the manifestations of 
individualism and collectivism. In periods when social tradi- 
tions and institutions break down, there is great opportunity 
for individual variation and self-assertion. At such times the 
individual becomes relatively free from the domination of 
traditions, customs, and institutions. He is thrown back 
upon his own impulses, feelings, and ideas. Hence we 
have great individual variations. On the other hand, in 
periods of social stability the adaptation of the individual 
to the social order, or his absorption in the life of this group, 
may become so complete that he may seem to lose in great 
measure his individuality. 

Now individualism and collectivism in the social life are 
just manifestations of these tendencies of the individual to 
free himself from or become absorbed into the life of the 
group. Like radicalism and conservatism, they are tendencies 
based upon the alternation of habit and adaptation in social 
life; and like them, a just balance should be maintained 
between these two tendencies for the most wholesome sort 
of social life. If the individual is too completely absorbed 
into his group, if there is too much insistence upon uniformity 
of individual behavior within the group, the individual loses 
initiative, becomes a mental and moral weakling, and the 
group itself becomes static. As we have already pointed out, 
the most wisely organized social groups always leave oppor- 
tunity for differences of individual behavior within certain 
limits. 

On the other hand, if individual variation becomes too 
great, if the individual becomes too independent of his group, 
he may set himself up as a law unto himself, and we have 
the danger of exaggerated individualism. This may result 


246 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in unending conflict between the habits of the individuals 
composing the group, consequently in unstable relations be- 
tween them, and possibly in the dissolution of the group. If 
the social group is to remain in a healthy condition, therefore, 
neither individualization nor socialization must be carried too 
far. Socialization must be of such a sort as to cultivate 
independent personality and judgment. It must aim at 
creating in individuals a strong mental and moral character 
which will spontaneously adjust itself to the highest needs 
of the group life. Individualization, on the other hand, must 
be such as to develop individual initiative and independent 
mental and moral character of such a sort as to fit the indi- 
vidual for the harmonious adjustment of his activities with 
those of other individuals. 

The absurdity of either extreme individualism or extreme 
collectivism, in either social theory or social practice, is 
manifest. Both are abstractions from the social life process. 
Neither can exist in its pure form in human society. While 
the danger in our civilization at the present time seems to be 
mainly from extreme individualism, yet it is evident that the 
other extreme, a collectivism which would suppress individual 
initiative and emphasize only the conformity of the individual 
to the group, is a possible danger which threatens the future. 
This danger comes, not only from communistic socialism as 
one form of collectivism, but also from autocracy, whether it 
appears under the guise of militarism or of imperialism. A 
balanced civilization must aim at both stability and progress 
in our social life, and hence leave room for individual varia- 
tion, while at the same time developing through education a 
high type of socialized character in individuals. 


Dynamic Society and Civilization ” 


We have already pointed out that the distinction between 
static and dynamic society is a matter of degree. The tend- 


12 For elaboration see Chap. XIV on “Social Progress.” 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 247 


ency for habit to predominate in the social life to the 
exclusion of adaptation, as we have already seen, manifests 
itself especially under very simple conditions of life where 
there are few crises or emergencies which call for a change 
in social habits. Also, as we have seen, under the powerful 
conservative influences of authoritarian religions and despotic 
governments, civilized societies may become static. But with 
the coming of more complex conditions of social life, through 
the growth of population, the migration and contact of peo- 
ples and cultures, the culture of civilized peoples tends to 
become dynamic. 

A society or a culture is not to be thought of as dynamic 
because it suffers destructive changes due to international or 
civil wars or other catastrophes. A society that is dynamic 
is one that changes; but the change is not in the way of 
disaster but in the way of growth. Such changes are in 
large measure a development of the culture already existing, 
or at least organically related to it. A dynamic society or 
civilization accordingly shows progress in certain lines, 
though not necessarily a balanced progress which we can 
speak of as “general progress,” or progress in the fullest 
sense of the word. If, however, we understand some of the 
conditions which give rise to dynamic societies and civiliza- 
‘tions, we shall understand some of the conditions of social 
progress. 

The first of these conditions is the freeing of the individual, 
especially the freeing of his mind. It is only through the 
liberation of thought that men are encouraged to criticize 
customs and institutions or to attempt to construct new ones. 
Mental plasticity in the individual must come before we can 
have plasticity in the group. The second condition is the 
encouragement of public discussion, and so of expression, 
on the part of individuals. Thus, as we have seen, there is 
possible a selection of types of thought, of action, and so of 
customs and institutions. The third condition is the develop- 


248 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ment of the tradition of social freedom and of social progress. 
With the development of a tradition of progress along many 
cultural lines new and higher social adjustments become pos- 
sible. Thus a dynamic type of civilization emerges, and 
slowly a tradition of progress in every line of culture is 
built up. 

Such free, reflective interference on the part of man with 
social conditions, institutions, and civilization does not neces- 
sarily tend to destroy social stability and order. On the 
contrary, even in the most progressive civilization, social 
habits are not apt to be discarded as long as they work well. 
Progress is not opposed to social order, as Comte long ago 
pointed out. The danger in a dynamic civilization is not in 
change or progress as such, but rather in one-sided change 
or progress. Development, if sound, must be well balanced. 
A dynamic society must seek normal growth and develop- 
ment along all lines, if it is not to suffer from ill-balanced or 
one-sided development. Progressive development cf all the 
functions and institutions of the social life must be its 
program, and in such a program science finds no inherent 
perils. Dynamic civilization is, on the contrary, more durable 
than static civilization, because it makes possible the establish- 
ment of an equilibrium between the social life and changing 
conditions. In a progressive civilization, as soon as condi- 
tions change, whether in the objective environment or in 
knowledge and beliefs, socially adaptive processes will come 
in to restore the equilibrium. There need be no end, there- 
fore, to a progressive or dynamic civilization. | 

But it may be asked is there not a goal for development, 
and is not a static condition of society and civilization 
bound to be reached sooner or later? The answer of social 
science is that, while hypothetically such a static condition 
of society and culture may sometime be reached, it is at 
present far in the future. The tradition of progress, once 
established in science, religion, and in the arts of life, opens 


NORMAL GROUP CHANGES 249 


up ever new vistas of higher and higher social adjustments. 
Such ideals may be only slowly realized, but when they exist 
as a part of the general social pattern, they are ready to be 
utilized as instruments of progress as soon as the social 
situation calls for them. Thus we can see no end to human 
progress, unless the end comes through some disaster, as 
the result of ill-balanced development. There is, therefore, 
no necessary death of cultures or civilizations. If they die 
or even suffer serious setbacks, it is because mistakes in 
social adjustments were made. (Dynamic civilization, if 
well balanced, is stable because it is a moving equilibrium in 
constant readjustment with the conditions of life. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Cootey, Social, Organization, Chaps. VIII, XI, XII. 

BacenoTt, Physics and Politics, Chap. V. 

BaupwIn, Social and Ethical Interpretations, Chap. XIV. 

Bocarbus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Chap. XX XIX. 

CuaPin, Historical Introduction to Social Economy, Chap. XVI. 

CooLtey, Human Nature and Social Order, Chap. IX; Social 
Process, Chap. XXXI. 

Davis, Psychological Interpretations of Society, Chaps. XIV, 
XV. 

GinsBerc, The Psychology of Society, Chap. X. 

HoguouseE, Social Evolution and Political Theory. 

KeE.uer, Societal Evolution, Chaps. IV, V, VI. 

Lamprecut, What Is History? Chaps. III, IV. 

’ LippMaNN, Public Opinion, Part VIII. 

OcsBurNn, Social Change, Part IV. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Pp. 791-790. 

Ross, Social Psychology, Chaps. XVII-XXIII; Foundations of 
Sociology, Chap. VIII. 

Tuomas, Source Book for Social Origins, pp. 13-22. 


CHAPTER VIII 
CHANGES WITHIN THE GROUP: ABNORMAL 


It would be fortunate for mankind if the process of nor- 
mal social change outlined in the preceding chapter were 
always followed by human groups. But in addition to these 
normal changes in group life, we find another sort, unusual, 
abrupt, and frequently accompanied by hostile conflicts within 
the group. These are the revolutionary changes. We may 
regard them as abnormal, since they are unusual and gen- 
erally accompanied by results which are more or less 
destructive of the group life. Some authors, however, have 
argued that such catastrophic or cataclysmic changes in 
human groups are the normal method of their evolution. 
We shall have to consider this doctrine later, but we must 
first try to understand such changes. Evidently this is the 
fourth general problem in group behavior. 


The Causes and Consequences of Social Immobility 


If human groups could keep a high degree of flexibility 
in their organization, intelligently adapting themselves to 
meet all changing conditions, social development would 
probably present only the curve of normal growth. At least, 
there would never be any such thing as the breakdown of 
social order. Unfortunately, however, this flexibility and 
plasticity in institutions and social organization is rarely 
realized. The very method by which human groups get 
their organization, through the habitual codrdination of the 
behavior of their individuals with that of some leader, or 
governing class, favors the development of immobility and 

250 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 251 


inflexibility in institutions, since usually a governing class 
is interested in maintaining conditions as they are. 

The relatively static condition of simple primitive societies 
does not here concern us. For, as we have already seen, 
such societies are usually more or less isolated and in sub- 
stantial equilibrium with their static life conditions. But 
this is not the case with those civilized societies which are 
in the main competition of life, or, so to speak, in the main 
stream of human evolution. In such a case, inflexibility in 
habits and institutions means that the group is apt to be 
thrown out of equilibrium with the constantly changing life 
conditions. 

The sociologist should accordingly give careful considera- 
tion to the conditions under which social habits, institutions, 
and organization may become inflexible. In a general way 
this has already been indicated when we have said that 
through interference with the mechanism of conscious social 
change, normal social readjustments may be prevented. 
Leaders and governing classes often find it to their personal 
interest to keep social institutions and organization unchang- 
ing. Hence they frequently interfere through the agencies 
of social control with the mechanism by which conscious 
changes are normally brought about in human groups. The 
partial or complete destruction of any part of this mechanism, 
such as free thinking, public criticism, free public discussion, 
the untrammeled formation of public opinion, of free selec- 
tion of leaders, is bound to stop, more or less completely, 
the process of rational social adjustment. The development 
of social life is thus checked or perverted. If this process 
goes on long enough, disaster is bound to come to the group 
in some form. 

Usually this interference with the mechanism of social re- 
adjustment is effected through manipulation of the agencies 
of social control, such as government, religion, and educa- 
tion, The shortsightedness or selfishness of the individuals 


252 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in charge of these institutions leads them to attempt to block 
normal social change. Thus governments may create im- 
mobility in institutions by forbidding free thought, free 
speech, the right of assembly, and petitions by the people. 
Religions in human history have not infrequently so glorified 
the past, or sanctified existing institutions, as to make needed 
changes well nigh impossible. Systems of education under 
the direction of authorities of either state or church have 
often done the same. Economic interests also often oppose 
needed readjustments. 

But beyond such ‘interferences through the agencies of 
social control with normal social development, we must 
recognize the fact that the temper and attitude of a majority 
of the people may accomplish the same thing. If there grows 
up in the mass of the people an intolerance of free thought, 
free speech, and public criticism, rational changes in institu- 
tions, to say nothing of the whole social order, are rendered 
practically impossible. Intolerant public sentiments and be- 
liefs may give rise, therefore, to inflexibility in habits and 
institutions in a society and stop normal social development. 
Whether racial traits in some cases may have something to 
do with social immobility is a disputed question; but in any 
case the establishment of a tradition of intolerance along 
any line, political, economic, religious, or educational, will 
account for most of the instances of social immobility and 
inflexibility in civilized societies. After 1830, for example, 
popular sentiment in our South became intolerant of criti- 
cism of the institution of slavery, opposing public discussion 
of the institution in any way. The result was that the 
institution remained relatively unchanged until a revolutionary 
war swept it away. It is well to remember, also, that “class 
interest,” both of privileged and unprivileged classes, on ac- 
count of the tendency to group egoism which we have already 
discussed, is liable to give rise to intolerance, and to attempts 
to suppress public criticism of class policies and actions 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 253 


whenever it can, thus detracting from the adaptability and 
flexibility of the whole group. 

Whatever the cause of social immobility, whether it be 
the impediments of despotic governments, authoritative ec- 
clesiasticism, racial temperament, intolerant public sentiment, 
or class interest, it is bound, if long continued, to produce 
social disaster; because this is an on-moving world. Such 
disaster may, of course, come in two forms. The group may 
become weakened through maintaining a static condition 
and getting out of adjustment with life conditions; so it 
may fall a victim of conquest, subjugation, or absorption 
by another group. If this does not happen, then disaster 
will sooner or later come in the form of internal disorder 
and disruption, when the conditions of social life have suff- 
ciently changed to make the old habits and institutions of the 
group no longer workable. It is this latter case with which 
we shall concern ourselves. We shall see how these con- 
ditions give rise to “social explosions.” 


The Psychology of Revolution 


The motivation of revolt in large masses of men is always 
lack of adaptation. But lack of adaptation is the cause 
of practically all attempts at readjustment in human _ be- 
havior, therefore, the question remains, what sort of lack of 
adaptation? Moreover, is the cause of the lack of adaptation 
to be found in individuals or in the social organization? 
Common sense has usually answered that the motivation for 
revolution is found in an oppressive social and political 
system. This view was happily phrased by President Wilson 
when he said, “Repression is the seed of revolution.” It 
is not too much to say that this phrase nearly expresses the 
modern psychological and sociological view. By “repression” 
we mean any situation in society which constantly thwarts 
the expression of natural impulses and tendencies on the 
part of individuals, Such repression if continued gives rise 


254 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


¢é 


in individuals to what has been called by psychologists “a 
balked disposition.” 

Evidently the repression must be general enough to affect 
a very considerable proportion of the population. More- 
over, it must be in connection with some phase of the group 
life or organization, which the masses of the group believe | 
might easily be changed. If the repression seems natural 
and inevitable, like the poverty which is caused by general 
lack of prosperity, by hard conditions of life, by famine or 
public calamity, it rarely excites revolt on the part of in- 
dividuals, but is endured with patience.t This may be true 
even in the case of a governmental system which has been 
inherited from the past, when there is comparatively little 
popular enlightenment. The repression that excites revolt 
may, of course, exist in any phase of the social life—eco- 
nomic, political, religious, etc. However, a political or eco- 
nomic system which is felt to be burdensome or repressive 
by some usually excites little revolt if expressions against it 
and statements of grievances are permitted and tolerated. 
The repression which stimulates revolution is usually the 
repression which forbids free expression, limits the freedom 
of intercommunication, intimidates free thinking and the 
free statement of grievances. 

There are, therefore, two aspects to the causes of social 
revolutions, one which has to do with the repression which 
the individual experiences, the other which has to do with 
the partial or complete destruction of freedom of intercom- 
munication and of the general machinery by which a group 
readjusts its behavior. As we have already seen, the process 
of intercommunication in society serves the same purpose 
as the connections in the nervous system of the individual. 
The process of intercommunication, in other words, serves 


1For a careful discussion of the conditions under which repres- 
sion gives rise to resentment and revolt, see Wallas, Our Social 
Heritage, Chap. VII. 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 258 


to distribute stimulations and ideas. When this process works 
freely, a stimulus felt by one member of a group is conveyed 
to other members. When a portion of a group has a griev- 
ance, other portions are made aware of this condition. Gen- 
eral group discussion takes place and readjustment normally 
follows. But when the machinery of readjustment is lack- 
ing, or even when its free functioning is interfered with, the 
group is unable for a greater or less length of time to change 
its habits and institutions. Social inflexibility or immobility 
ensues. The forces which make for change, however, usually 
accumulate. Individuals are more and more thrown out of 
adjustment with the conditions of life, and more and more 
they feel the repression which social immobility or in- 
flexibility entails. The immobility being forced upon the 
group, the group itself becomes unused to the process of read- 
justment. It is evident that if the breakdown of general so- 
cial habits and institutions occurs under these conditions, a 
period of social confusion and anarchy is liable to result. 
Accordingly the real cause or stimulus which provokes a 
social revolution must be sought in the system of social 
control. When that system is immobile, inflexible, and 
especially when it represses free expression on the part of 
individuals, that is, when it interferes with the free func- 
tioning of the process of intercommunication, of group dis- 
cussion, of the free formation of group opinion and the free 
determination of group policy, it is bound sooner or later 
to bring about the revolt of large masses of the group. But 
before this can take place, the forces opposing the old institu- 
tions or policies of the group must embody themselves in a 
party of opposition or revolt. This party is composed in 
general of those individuals whom the changed conditions 
of life have most affected, and who, therefore, feel most 
the repression of the old social order. The interest of these 
individuals obviously lies in a change in the policy and be- 
havior of the group. From these the attitude of revolt may 


256 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


spread by imitation among those classes to whom the old 
social institutions seem repressive, either on account of their 
material interests or on account of their sympathies or en- 
lightenment. The more sympathetic and intellectual elements 
of the group line up, therefore, with those who are oppressed. 
This gives the attitude of revolt prestige, and it spreads by 
imitation and suggestion to a larger and larger portion of 
the group. Thus the party of revolt grows until it comes 
to embody all whose ideal or material interests are in con- 
flict with the existing order of things. 

If those who are in charge of the system of social con- 
trol of the group, or its ruling classes, are wise, they can 
usually forestall a violent overturning of the existing order 
by listening to grievances and making concessions. ‘That is, 
the ruling classes may themselves take the lead in the re- 
adjustment of institutions along the line demanded by the 
party of revolt. Thus open conflict between classes may be 
averted. It is in this way that so-called “peaceful revolu- 
tions” are effected. Historically this outcome has been more 
frequent than the resort to open conflict between classes. 
If, however, inadequate concessions are made by the ruling 
class, or, in other words, if a system of repression and the 
relative inflexibility of the social order is maintained, then 
the motive to revolt persists and open conflict arises between 
the ruling class and the party of revolt. Thus come about 
those bloody struggles between privileged and nonprivileged 
classes for the possession of the agencies of social control, 
especially for political and economic power, which we term 
“social revolutions.”’ Successful revolutions are character- 
ized by a change in sovereignty, that is, by the shifting of 
the social control from one class to another, and often by 
fundamental changes in the social order.2, Such social move- 


2 Compare Bauer’s definition of revolution, “Revolution is the change 
of the constitution of society realized by violence.” (Quoted by 
Sorokin, The Sociology of Revolution, p. 8.) 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES ~~ 287 


ments are a very striking form of group behavior, and are 
evidently of peculiar interest to sociologists and social psy- 
chologists. All the more so because a current social phi- 
losophy of the day regards this method of social change as a 
normal one. We may take as typical revolutions, in the 
sense in which we are using the term, the Puritan Revolu- 
tion in England, the French Revolution, the Chinese Revolu- 
tion and the Russian Revolution, All revolutionary move- 
ments and struggles, however, will be found to conform 
more or less closely to the psychology of these changes which 
we are outlining. 


Inadequate Psychological Theories of Revolution 


The “repression theory of revolutions,’ which we have just 
stated in outline,* is often rejected, probably because it seems 
to throw the burden of responsibility for causing revolutions 
upon the conservative and ruling classes. It is said that revo- 
lutions start in social discontent and restlessness. But the 
writers who advocate this theory do not tell us where the 
social discontent and restlessness comes from. It is often 
said that false hopes are awakened among the masses by 
Utopian thinkers who present impossible social ideals. From 
these ideals people become discontented, and discontent with 
existing institutions is gradually diffused among the ignorant 
masses through the force of suggestion and imitation, until 
at last these ignorant masses develop an attitude of revolt. 
This theory assumes that the mass of the people are irra- 
tional and may be made discontented merely by suggestion 
and imitation when they really have no rational ground for 
discontent. The theory also assumes a force to suggestion 
and imitation in the social life, which we shall see in a later 
chapter they do not possess. While it is true that the mass 





8 This theory is elaborated by Professor Sorokin in his book, The 
Sociology of Revolution, which uses the Russian Revolution as its 
background. It was first outlined by the writer of this book in 1899. 


258 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of men have no highly developed rationality, yet, on the 
other hand, they are inert creatures of habit and rarely 
manifest discontent, especially in the extreme form of an 
attitude of revolt, without considerable cause or reason. 
After all, the masses of mankind do not get discontented over 
vain imaginings, and are rarely stampeded by suggestions 
which are not in line with the situation in which they find 
themselves. People have more common sense than some 
social and psychological writers credit them with. Men 
rarely undertake civil war between classes any more than 
war between nations without very considerable incitement 
to conflict; in other words, without a serious breakdown 
in the codrdination which normally exists between the be- 
havior of different classes within a nation. <Agitators, 
Utopian and radical thinkers do not cause revolutions, but 
rather voice discontent which already exists. Their ideas, 
however, are not only expressions of discontent, but may 
become vehicles for furthering discontent and so instruments 
of revolution. Hence we must notice the part which these 
play in revolutionary movements. 


The Réle of Destructive Criticism and Disintegrating Ideas 
in Revolutions * 


Criticism, as we have seen, marks the beginning of social 
change; it is a discrimination of something wrong in the 
existing social situation. Ideas, we have seen, are instru- 
ments of social readjustment; but they may be concerned 
with the tearing down as well as with the building up of 
habits and institutions. Hence revolutionary movements are 
always preceded hy criticism of existing institutions of a 
destructive rather than a constructive nature, and by nega- 
tive doctrines regarding many of the values connected with 
the social order criticized. These destructive criticisms and 


4See Sorokin, op. cit., especially Chap. IX, for elaboration. 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 259 


negative doctrines are taken by the party of revolt as weapons 
or instruments for attacking the established order. They 
also frequently become the watchwords and shibboleths of 
the party of revolt. They are more effective in weakening 
the old institutions and the position of the ruling or privileged 
classes than any other weapons of attack, for human groups 
control their behavior, as we have seen, by pattern ideas, and 
when the social patterns on which a given social order rests 
are undermined, its support outside of the use of sheer 
physical force is gone. This is well understood by the radical 
leaders of the party of revolt. They always make larger 
use of these intellectual rather than material weapons. They, 
therefore, try to line up on their side the intellectual and 
literary classes of the nation. If these classes are wholly won 
over to the side of the party of revolt, it is safe to say that 
the revolution is bound to come, if not by peaceful conces- 
sions, then by the use of physical force. When a nation’s 
thinkers no longer support its social order, change is inevi- 
table. 


Mobs in Revolutionary Periods 


It has been a favorite idea of some writers that revolu- 
tions are the result of mob action. Mobs often play a con- 
siderable part in revolutions, but it is certain that they have 
little to do with causing revolutions or with their final out- 
come. The conditions of confusion and excitement in revolu- 
tions simply favor the formation of crowds, and mob action. 
There is an absence, on the one hand, of the controlling habits, 
ideas, and sentiments which usually secure order in a popula- 
tion, and, on the other, there is a general reversion in the 
masses to relatively unreflective, emotional types of activity, 
hence to animal-like levels of behavior.’ Under such con- 
ditions individuals are extremely suggestible, and show a 





5 Compare Sorokin, op. cit., Chap. II. 


260 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


lack of their usual inhibitions upon behavior. Hence mobs 
are easily formed, and a suggestion may suffice to incite them 
to the most extreme deeds. Plentiful illustrations will be 
found in the French Revolution, though all prolonged revolu- 
tionary periods have been characterized more or less by the 
existence of mobs. It is a mistake, however, to think that 
mobs initiate or carry through revolutions. Revolutions 
simply afford opportunities for mobs and other crowds to 
play a much greater part than they do in normal times; and 
this again is one of the dangers of revolutionary periods. 


The State of “Chronic Revolution” 


The duration of anarchy and mob rule in a revolution de- 
pends upon a number of factors. If the party of revolt is 
united upon a program, and if the population is not too 
greatly divided and has not lost its power of rapid read- 
justment, a period of anarchy and confusion may scarcely 
develop. Under such circumstances the reconstruction of 
new habits and institutions may go on rapidly under the 
guidance of the revolutionary party. Our own War of 
Independence may be taken as an illustration of this type 
of revolution. Too often, however, the revolutionary party 
is united in nothing except in its opposition to the old régime. 
It can find no principles or interests upon which it is united, 
and which it can use as a basis for a new social order. More- 
over, the abuses and immobility of the old order may have 
left the mass of the population ignorant, degraded, and with- 
out the power of intelligent adaptation. Under such con- 
ditions the period of confusion, anarchy, and mob rule may 
continue for a long time. Frequent unsuccessful attempts 
may be made to set up a stable social order, but the state is, 
evidently, one which may be called ‘chronic revolution.” 
The revolutions in some Central and some South American 
countries have not infrequently illustrated such an unhappy. 
outcome. 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 261 


The Sociology of the Dictatorship 


Usually the only escape from such a state of anarchy and 
confusion is in the advent of a “strong man.” The social 
order cannot be reconstructed upon the basis of ideal prin- 
ciples, but only about the personality of some hero. The 
appearance of “dictators” in revolutionary periods is, then, 
not difficult to understand. The dictator is intrusted with 
more or less absolute power, and anthropology shows that 
absolutism of this sort originates through the stresses and 
strains which accompany prolonged war. Now, in the civil 
war, which we call a “revolution,” if it is prolonged, we 
have all the conditions favoring the rise of centralized, des- 
potic, social control. When the revolutionists are unable 
to agree among themselves or to effect the reconstruction 
of the social order upon the basis of ideal principles, their 
only hope lies in despotic, centralized control. The revolu- 
tionary party turns to such a policy to insure its own 
survival. It, therefore, seeks for some strong man, often 
a military hero, who will command the primitive sentiments 
of personal attachment, fear, and loyalty of the masses. 
The personality of such a hero affords the most natural 
stimulus around which a new social order can be organized 
when other means of reconstructing social institutions have 
failed; for primitively, social organization was based more 
upon these personal sentiments than upon abstract principles 
of either social justice or social expediency. 

We see, therefore, how dictatorships, such as “the dictator- 
ship of the proletariat” in Russia, naturally arise in revolu- 
tionary periods. The dictator is simply a leader selected by 
his group to restore social order upon the primitive bases of 
personal prestige and the exercise of brute force, and hence 
he is clothed with absolute power. Such a man is selected 
by the group, and, of course, does not “hypnotize” his group, 
as has been sometimes alleged. The man may be wise, or 


262 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


unwise, competent or incompetent, from the standpoint of 
critical science. He is given power merely in order to 
restore social order. Here again, we see the principle that 
the social leader must be selected by the group, if he is 
effectively to exercise power. The leader who is given power 
is, therefore, essentially created by the group. If such 
typical dictators of revolutionary eras as Cromwell, Napoleon 
and Lenin had never lived, they would have had their places 
filled by other, though probably inferior, men. 


Reactions after Revolutions 


The reason for the frequency of reactions after revolu- 
tions is now manifest. After futile attempts to reconstruct 
the social order, the easiest thing is to go back to the old 
habits and order which existed before the revolution began. 
This is the more easy because no revolution is ever absolute; 
it is never more than a partial destruction of old habits and 
institutions. New habits, we have seen, must be erected upon 
the basis of old habits. What remains of the old habits after 
a revolution must serve, then, as the foundation of new 
habits and institutions. If, however, no agreement regard- 
ing a new social order can be reached, then the only alterna- 
tive is reversion to prerevolutionary conditions, if any stable 
social order is to be established. 

Such reactions are, of course, connected with the difficulties 
of changing collective habits, which we have already touched 
upon. Any radical change in collective habits necessitates 
the assent of practically the entire mass of a group. A 
change may be initiated and temporarily established by a 
majority, or even by a minority; but for a change to become 
permanent in a free society the mass of the group has to 
be brought sooner or later to assent to the change; otherwise 
a new party of revolt may form which will start a counter- 
revolution; and the counter-revolution, if successful, brings 
a reaction to prerevolutionary conditions. It is not difficult, 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 263 


accordingly, to understand the reactions after the Puritan 
Revolution in England and after the French Revolution. Re- 
actions must, indeed, be deemed one of the reasons why the 
method of change through revolution is socially undesirable. 
However, the evidence of history seems to show that such 
reactions are only temporary. <A population, keeping its 
power of adaptation, will, as a rule, at some later time pro- 
ceed to make effective through peaceful methods the changes 
which it failed to realize through revolution. — 


Illustrations of the Theory of the Origin of Revolutions 


That revolutions originate through repressive social, po- 
litical, and economic systems is illustrated clearly enough by 
the cases of Russia and France. So far from the Russian 
Revolution having been the work of agitators and of Utopian 
idealists, as some have mistakenly claimed, the researches of 
its most careful students have shown conclusively that it origi- 
nated in policies of repression which had continued for over 
a century. The Russian Revolution was destructive and 
terrible just because the repressions which had preceded it 
were severe and prolonged. Thus the people gradually lost 
faith in their ruling class and, at the same time, came to 
feel that their legitimate aspirations and desires were need- 
lessly repressed and thwarted. The traditional loyalty of 
the masses for those in power in the political, the economic, 
and the ecclesiastical systems was undermined, and distrust 
and resentment took its place. The French Revolution also 
illustrates, not less clearly, the part which repression plays in 
causing social explosions. According to the testimony of all 
careful students, needless repression of reasonable popular 
demands for social and political changes, prompted by the 
selfishness and the stupidity of the ruling classes, caused 
the French Revolution. 

The study of almost any great revolutionary uprising will 
illustrate the principles which we have stated. The Puritan 


264 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Revolution of England, the recent Mexican Revolution, and 
the Chinese Revolution also illustrate clearly the part which 
repression plays in causing such social disturbances. It 
would be a mistake, however, to think that repression and 
interference with normal social change are always the work 
of a governing class. As we have already pointed out, it may 
sometimes be the work of an intolerant majority, as was 
illustrated by the Civil War in the United States. Here, it 
will be remembered, intolerant popular sentiment prevented 
changes in the institution of slavery until a war of revolu- 
tionary character swept the institution away. 


The Prevention of Social Revolutions 


All that we have said implies that revolutions are impossible 
in a free, flexible, adaptable type of social organization. In 
a group in which intelligent public criticism, free public dis- 
cussion, and free thought about social conditions and institu- 
tions are encouraged; in which there is no impediment to the 
free expression of opinions or of grievances; in which there 
is an adaptable, flexible public opinion, alert for social better- 
ment; and in which there is untrammeled selection of social! 
policies and social leaders, there can be no danger of a social 
revolution. That danger comes, as we have seen, when 
class interest, whether it be of the privileged or the non- 
privileged classes, interferes with the free working of the 
mechanism of conscious social change and establishes a policy 
of repression and intolerance. The burden of responsibility 
for maintaining flexibility of social life through the free 
functioning of conscious social change rests, however, espe- 
cially upon the ruling classes, that is, those who are in charge 
of the institutions of social control. If those in power in 
a group, whether they represent a minority or a majority, 
will keep open the means of understanding and sympathy 
between classes; if they will keep in touch with the needs 
of all classes; if they will keep untrammeled public criticism 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 265 


and discussion of public policies and all the means of form- 
ing rational public opinion and of selecting authorities to 
carry out the same, there will be no danger of revolution, 
in the sense of the violent seizure of power by one class from 
another class, being resorted to in any social group. In 
other words, a perfectly democratic organization of the group 
along with a fraternal attitude of classes toward one another 
will effectually do away with the danger of revolutionary 
struggles. 

The history of almost any modern nation will illustrate 
these principles both positively and negatively. Perhaps the 
history of modern England will, on the whole, however, 
illustrate them better than that of any other nation. After 
experiencing two revolutions in the seventeenth century, 
and the revolt and loss of their chief American colonies in 
the eighteenth, the ruling classes of England learned their 
lesson and succeeded in avoiding political and social revolu- 
tions in the last decade of the eighteenth century and during 
the whole of the nineteenth, although during that period 
almost the whole of Christendom experienced revolution. 
England was free from revolutions because during all this 
period its governing classes kept English social and political 
institutions flexible and responsive to the social life of the 
English people. The adjustment was, of course, far from 
perfect; but it was sufficiently close to prevent any great 
development of revolutionary movements among the English 
people at home. However, because the attitude of the au- 
thorities in England was the reverse toward the people of 
Ireland and India, the very reverse was true with the Irish 
people and with the people of India. In other words, the 
individual liberty of thought, the free public discussion, and 
the democratic methods of social control which the English 
people developed in the eighteenth century saved English 
society from revolution during the nineteenth century. So- 
cial freedom and plasticity, in a word, favored normal social 


206). -PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF HUMAN ‘SOCIETY 


development rather than revolution in English society dur- 
ing the nineteenth century. Again and again the danger 
of revolution was averted by a series of rational social 
changes or readjustments through social legislation. The 
very latest illustration of this plasticity of English society 
is, of course, the coming into power in Great Britain of 
a Labor government without any revolutionary disturbance. 
_ The experience of history must lead the student of society 
to conclude, therefore, that needed social changes can be 
anticipated, and so revolution and social disaster avoided. 
But first we must get rid of the illusion that repression is 
the means of preventing revolution. The truth has been 
shown to be the very reverse of this. Social revolutions are, 
we have seen, easily avoided, and are pathological and 
abnormal methods of social change. Whether or not human 
societies will continue to resort to such costly methods of 
effecting social changes in the future will depend, of course, 
upon the development of social intelligence in all classes. 
Here we may see clearly both the value and the limitations 
of the social sciences. They cannot, of course, predict 
events far in the future, as some of the physical sciences 
can do, because they deal with far too complex phenomena; 
but the social sciences can define the conditions under which 
social occurrences of a given type will take place. While 
they cannot foretell the social future, they may indicate the 
way of social health and security. 


Catastrophic Change in Social Evolution 


If revolution is not a normal method of social change; 
if, rather, it is the result of the breakdown of normal meth- 
ods of social readjustment; and if as a method of change 
it is accompanied by grave disadvantages and dangers, we 
see that the popular doctrine that social progress often 
comes through revolution is subject to considerable scien- 
tific modification. It cannot be denied, of course, that, in 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 267 


the past, social progress has often come through revolutions; 
but when these have involved bloody conflicts between classes 
it has come at too great social cost. The wounds of such 
internal conflicts as the French Revolution and the American 
Civil War have perhaps healed, owing to the recuperative 
power in the national life of the French and American peo- 
ples; but the good which they accomplished was bought at 
such price that dispassionate historians would doubtless 
agree that if the changes which they effected could have 
been secured in any other way, it would have been socially 
preferable. The social ruin and disaster which has resulted 
from every revolutionary struggle in human history makes 
it incumbent on the social sciences to point out a better way 
of social progress than by revolution. 

Nevertheless,‘some recent social thinkers have set forth 
the theory that just as we have organic evolution by muta- 
tion, so we must have social evolution by social mutations, 
or revolutions. This is, of course, not a new theory; it is 
essentially what Karl Marx meant by his doctrine of “evolu- 
tion through revolution.” The appeal to DeVries’s mutation 
theory in biology gives to this doctrine of the normality of 
revolutions as a means of progress but little, if any, added 
strength. Social evolution is not comparable, either in nature 
or method, to organic evolution. Human social evolution 
proceeds by a learning process, and the only advantage that 
might be claimed for the revolutionary method is that some- 
times people learn rapidly from disasters and calamities. It 
is decidedly unsafe, however, to think that violence can do 
much toward the education of the race. 

It must be remembered that there are distinct limits to 
the use of force in human society. When the use of force 
is motivated by good will, and this fact is recognized, as in 
the legitimate use of force by recognized governments in 
the exercise of their police powers, there is little danger; 
but this is not the case in the conflicts of classes. The violent 


268 . PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


seizure of power by one class, to accomplish its ends, can 
rarely take place without bloody conflicts with other classes. 
Now, violence releases, as we have already seen, the primitive 
brute instincts of man which civilization with such difficulty 
controls. Violence, therefore, can rarely be successfully 
employed in the higher stages of civilization without defeat- 
ing the very ends for which it is employed. Its employment 
starts a process of rebarbarization which is destructive to 
those higher social values which civilization has so painfully 
built up, and by which men have slowly learned to regulate 
their conduct. If long continued, violence results in the 
total destruction of those cooperative attitudes which have 
produced civilization and which make progress possible. 
The method of social change through revolution must be 
regarded, therefore, as involving too great a risk to be 
tolerated by an intelligent people. All that can be said in 
condemnation of war in general applies with equal force to 
civil war. Civil wars and international wars, when pro- 
longed, seem to be the chief cause of serious reversions in 
civilization; but such reversions constitute another prob- 
lem which we must now consider. 


Reversions in Civilization 


There is no reason, so far as the student of social life can 
discover, why social evolution should not be continuous and 
progressive, with only the rhythms which necessarily result 
from the replacement of old by new customs and institutions. 
There is no necessary decay and death of civilization. Cul- 
ture results from a learning process, which conceivably 
might go on continuously from generation to generation with 
only the “plateaus,” which indicate relatively complete periods 
of adjustment, such as we find also in the case of the learn- 
ing of an individual. However, this has not been the actual 
course of human history. Western civilization especially 
shows periods of the decadence or breakdown of civilization. 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 269 


The breakdown of civilization at the end of classic antiquity 
was so serious and complete that not more than a tithe of 
the knowledge of the arts and sciences and of the great cul- 
tural traditions in general of the classic world survived. It 
is said, indeed, that such common knowledge as how to com- 
pute the square surface of a triangle—knowledge which 
every Greek and Roman schoolboy possessed—had been com- 
pletely forgotten. It was not until the latter part of the 
nineteenth century that all of the knowledge possessed by 
the Greeks and the Romans, even in a technical way, was 
completely recovered. This example sufficiently demonstrates 
that serious setbacks, or reversions, in human culture are 
possible. 

While we have detailed historical knowledge of only one 
such reversion in civilization, the anthropologist and archzol- 
ogist find abundant evidence, in many places in the world, of 
buried or extinct civilizations. All the evidence seems to 
show that in all ages human culture has been essentially a 
fragile affair, subject to numerous setbacks and reversions. 
This is what we should expect if we understand thoroughly 
the nature of culture as essentially a learning process, which 
may be subject to many interruptions. It is a common view 
that the breakdown of the civilization of classic antiquity 
was due to the fact that the territory of the civilized peoples 
of the Mediterranean was invaded by the barbarians of north- 
ern Europe; that ancient civilizations were unstable because 
they were surrounded by barbarians, and that modern civiliza- 
tion will prove stable because there are no longer any bar- 
barians to threaten it. 

It must be acknowledged that all buried civilizations of the 
past were surrounded, when they flourished, by a ring of bar- 
barism; but this fact does not prove that the main cause of 
their decay was that they were overwhelmed by the bar- 
barians. On the contrary, internal disorder and disunity, 
in all the cases of which we have knowledge, especially in 


270 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the case of the Greeks and Romans, preceded the over- 
throw of the civilization by surrounding peoples of lower 
culture. Greek and Roman civilization went to pieces at the 
touch of the barbarians because it was a rotten shell. It 
is a reasonable inference, therefore, that reversions in civ- 
ilization of the serious sort are connected with the internal 
disorders in national and cultural groups, that is, with the 
failure of those groups to adjust themselves, harmoniously 
and successfully, to changed life conditions. But let us 
see more minutely what are the causes of such reversion. 


Causes of Cultural Decadence 


Let us note, first of all, that serious retrogressive move- 
ments are more liable to occur in higher civilization than in 
lower civilization; for a high civilization is achieved and 
maintained only through the most delicate and refined in- 
struments of social control—only through the influence of 
ideal social values and standards. The decay of a civilization 
is evidently a process of the decay of those higher controls 
over behavior which civilization devised and upon which all 
high civilization rests. There is no reason to think that 
there could be reversion to the lower levels of culture with- 
out the decay of the higher civilized standards and values 
which have been set up as controls over conduct. There is 
also no reason to think that this decay is spontaneous or 
mysterious in any way, or that it comes about simply because 
civilized conduct is “fatiguing,” as some have claimed.6 On 
the contrary, it must be due to the breakdown of civilizing 
traditions in the various groups which are the bearers of 
these traditions. This breakdown may come through the 





6 The facts of history give little or no support to the theory 
of some psychologists that all civilized conduct is “fatiguing,” and 
that we can spontaneously revert to barbarous or savage levels. 
Reversions are not shown in history without greater or less decay 
of civilizing standards, resulting from the causes mentioned. See 
Patrick’s Psychology of Relaxation, especially Chap. VI. 


i _ ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 271 


failure to keep up the standards, the morale, of the group, 
through the luxury and self-indulgence which accompany the 
growth of wealth and power, or through internal disorder 
and strife in the group, which releases brute impulses, diverts 
energy to nonproductive uses, destroys the accumulations of 
the past, and interrupts the process of learning and so the 
transmission of culture in the group. These causes usually 
work together.” 

The various steps in decadence will show more clearly 
the causes of reversions than any abstract discussion. The 
first step in cultural decay seems always to be the decay of 
private morals, through luxury and self-indulgence, usually 
accompanying the growth of wealth and power. This is to 
be observed particularly in the family group and in personal 
relations. Then comes, secondly, a decay of public morals. 
Officials who have lost their standards in private morals 
naturally become corrupt in public office. Their corruption 
weakens the confidence of the population in their govern- 
ment and other agencies of social control. The third step 
is to be observed in the growth of social disorders and in 
the strife between classes. Individuals and classes losing 
their confidence in their officials and their agencies of social 
control resort more and more to extra-legal methods of set- 
tling their disputes. Riots, mobs, and crimes of various sorts 
increase. Strife between groups representing opposing in- 
terests arises and cannot be overcome because there is ‘no 
basis for restoring harmony, either in the attitudes of in- 
dividuals and classes or in the machinery of social control. 
The fourth step in decadence inevitably appears if civic dis- 
orders continue to grow, and that is civil war between classes. 
It would be a mistake, of course, to confuse revolutions and 
civil wars with reversions in civilization. They are only one 


7Compare what was said on the causes of social disintegration 
in Chap. V. Reversions in civilization are, of course, the same 
process carried to its limits and affecting large cultural groups. 


272 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF HUMAN? SOCIETY 


factor in cultural setbacks; but if continued long enough 
they may be a very large factor. A fifth factor, however, 
seems to be necessary, and that is continued international 
wars. It will be remembered that after Rome had been 
weakened by the decay of its private and public morals, by 
civic dissensions and by civil wars, the final blow to its 
civilization came through a long series of both civil and 
international wars. It is certain that it is prolonged civil 
and international strife which in human history has chiefly 
caused great setbacks in high civilization. War, however, 
gives only the finishing stroke, and probably war does not 
occur in a high civilization without some decay of its higher 
values, not, at least, long and devastating war. War is the 
Nemesis of a corrupt civilization. 

Reyversions in civilization occur, therefore, because the con- 
structive processes of group life, the higher activities of 
social life, are interrupted by strife and disorder. Thus, the 
tendency towards anarchy, which we see in all revolutionary 
periods, if indefinitely prolonged, would break down the tra- 
ditions of civilization, and social life would come to rest at 
a substantially lower level. The same result, of course, could 
come about through prolonged international war. If strife, 
confusion, and anarchy continue long in any group the learn- 
ing process which maintains culture must be interrupted, and 
the reversion must be serious. Not only will there be tempo- 
rary reversions to barbarous levels of conduct on the part of 
individuals and of the group, but civilizing traditions may 
themselves be for a time forgotten. Even the greatest re- 
versions in civilization, however, we have every reason to 
believe, can be but temporary. As civilization rests upon 
the learning process, sooner or later people must learn even 
from their mistakes and calamities; and thus, the cultural 
process starts afresh. But if great setbacks in civilization 
can be avoided, humanity will obviously gain much. We 
should probably be at least five centuries ahead of where we 


ABNORMAL GROUP CHANGES 273 


are in our culture if there had been no breakdown of Greek 
and Roman civilization. 

If the danger of serious setbacks or reversions in civiliza- 
tion is real, then is there danger of a reversion of modern 
civilization to barbarism? The sociologist can, of course, 
only give a hypothetical answer to this question. It is 
easily possible that serious setbacks to Western civilization 
may result from the condition of disorder and unstable 
equilibrium in which Western nations now find themselves. 
Nevertheless, perhaps no complete return need be feared; 
for it would take centuries to break down all of the civilizing 
traditions in Western civilization. If, however, through 
the failure of classes and nations to make rational readjust- 
ments of their mutual relationships, a series of civil and 
international wars should result, then Western civilization 
would not only be stopped in its development, but would 
soon begin a rapid decline. This is all the more true because 
physical science has made war now so much more destruc- 
tive to life, property, and moral character than it formerly 
was. Modern civilization, because of its greater knowledge, 
has more weapons of self-destruction and may, therefore, 
if it does not secure harmonious adjustments between its 
groups, more easily destroy itself. However, this greater 
knowledge, if turned in a social direction, and applied to 
the solution of the problems of human living together, may 
also make it easier for civilized groups to adjust themselves 
harmoniously if they will. What our civilization evidently 
needs, to save it from self-destruction, is to be awakened 
to a realization of the fact that there is greater advantage 
for races, nations, and classes to live together harmoniously 
in relations of peace and mutual cooperation than to live in 
strife, endeavoring to exploit and despoil one another. But 
before they can learn this lesson they will have to learn how 
to adjust their relations among their own individual mem- 
bers; that is, they will have to learn the first principles of 


274 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


human living together and be willing to apply them to their 
own social life. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Sorokin, The Sociology of Revolution, Part V. 

Apams, The Theory of Social Revolutions, Chaps. I, IV. 

ARISTOTLE, The Politics. Welldon’s Translation, Book VIII. 

CooLtey, Social Organization, Chaps. XXX-XXXIII. 

HynpMan, The Evolution of Revolution. 

LippMANN, A Preface to Politics, Chap. IX. 

Maclver, Community, Book III, Chap. II. 

Petrie, The Revolutions of Civilization, Chaps. VI, VII. 

Ross, Social Control, Chaps. XXVIII, XXIX; Principles of 
Sociology, Chaps. XLIII, XLV. 

Sims, Society and Its Surplus, Chap. X. 

Wattas, Our Social Heritage, Chap. VII. 

WiuiaMs, Principres of Social Psychology, Chap. XXIX. 

WoLFE, Conservatism, Radicahsm, and Scientific Method, Chaps. 
VI, VII. 


CHAPTER IX 
INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 


THE social life of animal groups below man is usually 
recognized to be very largely of an instinctive character. If 
human society is an outgrowth of this animal social life, as 
the hypothesis of organic evolution supposes, then there is 
nothing in the transition from the subhuman to the human 
to cause the loss of the instinctive element, even though other 
elements in the social life are developed and gradually grow 
in importance. As we have seen, the instinctive or organic 
reactions of man must have furnished the original beginnings 
of his social life, just because the psychic life of all animals 
began with the action patterns which are furnished in the 
heredity of the organism. We cannot deny that instinctive 
reactions furnish the starting point for human behavior with- 
out throwing over the whole hypothesis of the continuity be- 
tween the animal and the human; in other words, the hypothe- 
sis of organic evolution. 

However, the question still remains for sociology and social 
psychology as to just the part played in civilized human 
social life by instinctive tendencies. This is, of course, in a 
sense the old question of the influence of heredity versus 
environment in human social life; for the word instinct, we 
have seen, if taken in its broadest sense, stands roughly for 
the inherited tendencies or predispositions in the behavior 
of man. It is impossible in the present state of our knowl- 





1 Compare the discussion of instinctive tendencies or reactions in 
Chap. III; also the discussion of intelligence as controlling and 
modifying natural impulses in Chap. X. 

275 


276 PSYCHOLOGY OF VHUMANSGiGiie hy: 


edge to determine accurately the part which each of these 
two sets of forces plays in human society, but it is possible 
in a general way to see how each works and the peculiar in- 
fluence which each exerts. It is very important in the social 
sciences to distinguish the “original,’ the “hereditary,” or 
the “instinctive,” from the “learned,” the “acquired,” or the 
“cultural.” To this problem we shall now address ourselves. 
How much is inborn in man’s social behavior? 


Wrong Uses of Instinct in Social Theory ” 


Crude recognitions of the part played in the social life of 
man by inherited reaction tendencies, or “instincts,” have 
pervaded social theorizing almost since systematic reflections 
upon the nature of human society began. For example, a 
special “‘social instinct” has often been invoked to explain 
the origin of society ; but modern science can find no evidence 
of the existence of such a special instinct. In general, 
speculative thinkers have not hesitated to invoke the action 
of special instincts whenever they have met anything in 
human relations or institutions which baffled them. Thus 
we find mentioned in social literature special ‘‘political in- 
stincts’ of man, special “religious instincts,’ “economic in- 
stincts,” and the like. The student need hardly be warned 
that such a procedure is highly unscientific. Even the use 
of such a phrase as “the properties of human nature” is to 
be avoided; for modern psychology would resolve “the prop- 
erties of human nature” mostly into inherited reaction tend- 
encies, or else into acquired reactions built up through 
habituation to a specific environment. 

In recent sociological literature we find not less crude uses 
of the conception of instinct. Thus one writer would ap- 
parently explain the movement of the Industrial Workers 
of the World as caused almost entirely by balked instincts 





2 Compare Professor Bernard’s discussion of this matter, especially 
in Chap. VII of his book, Instinct, A Study in Social Psychology. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 257 


of the wandering laborers in our Western states.* A much 
more reasonable explanation of the movement could be of- 
fered in terms of traditions, ideas, propaganda, and general 
social environment, though this is not saying that instinctive 
tendencies might not have a part in such a movement. Again, 
some writers would apparently explain the whole cultural 
development of man in terms of one or two instinctive tend- 
encies, such as the so-called “instinct of workmanship,”* 
or the “creative impulse.” It should be needless to say that 
psychology and sociology offer no justification for the ex- 
planation of such complex processes in so simple terms. So- 
cial behavior is always a complex of many factors. 

The most common, crude use of the conception of instinct 
is to be found, however, in the popular opinion that what- 
ever man does is the result of an original human nature with 
which he is endowed by heredity; that human culture there- 
fore is like the spider’s web, a structure whose pattern is 
inherited in the nervous systems of the individuals produc- 
ing it. According to this false social philosophy, if men 
fight or make war, if they lie, cheat, or steal, if they are 
kindly and cooperative, it is all the result of the inherited 
action patterns in their nervous systems. 


Recent Theories Regarding the Social Significance of Instinct 


Roughly speaking, there are three different schools re- 
garding the social significance of instinct at the present time. 
One school of social thinkers would make the instincts of 
man the sole sources of human motives, the sole springs of 
human action. This view is championed by Professor 
William McDougall;® but its most extreme advocates are 
generally certain minor writers, such as Trotter.* Trotter 





8 Carlton Parker, The Casual Laborer, Chaps. II, III. 
4Veblen, The Instinct of Workmanship, Chap. I. 

5 McDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology, Chap. II. 
6 Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, pp. 1-65. 


278 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIFTY 


would apparently account for the most striking characteris- 
tics of the social behavior of man upon the basis of a single 
instinct—the gregarious or “herd instinct.” The very an- 
tithesis of this view is represented by the environmentalists 
and institutionalists, who would explain social behavior 
wholly in terms of the situation or environment. Accord- 
ing to these thinkers behavior is simply a function of the 
environment. This extreme school is perhaps best repre- 
sented by Professor Josey’ and Professor Kantor. Pro- 
fessor Kantor would make the institutional situation and 
stimuli the adequate explanation of all social behavior among 
human beings.? According to him, all the social behavior 
of man is “institutional.” A third school, which includes 
the bulk of the sociologists and social psychologists, occupies 
a midway position. This school would explain the social 
behavior of civilized men mainly through their culture or 
their social environment, but would keep instinctive tenden- 
cies for the background upon which habit complexes are 
built up through experience. This school does not find any 
pure instincts in human behavior, but only instinctive tenden- 
cies. According to this theory, just as physical and chem- 
ical factors still persist and condition even the highest mani- 
festations of life, so inherited reaction tendencies are still 
powerful in the direction and control of human activities, 
even though these latter are mainly controlled by culture 
and environment. Perhaps we may say that this school, 
while recognizing the biological, the racial, or the instinctive 
factor in human behavior, would make it the last rather than 
the first thing to be appealed to in scientific explanation. 
This 1s the view which is accepted in this text. Hereditary 
bent is one factor in determining man’s social behavior. 





7 Josey, The Social, Philosophy of Instinct. 

8 See his article, “The Institutional Foundation of a Scientific 
Social Psychology,” in American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXIX, 
pp. 674-687 (1924). 


e 
INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 279 


The Nature of Human Instincts 


Adult human behavior shows no “instincts” in the popular 
sense of the term. So far as we know, there are in man 
no “inborn or inherited automatic action patterns,’ if we 
except certain reflexes like winking. Many of the instincts 
of the lower animals, especially of the insects, seem to be, 
however, of this type. Instincts in this sense are largely 
automatic and incapable of modification. Except for the 
simpler reflexes they are unknown in man.° Man’s devel- 
opment has not been in the direction of a predetermined 
automatism, but rather in the direction of intelligent, pur- 
posive action. In this sense there is truth in the assertion 
that instinct and intelligence represent divergent evolutions 
in animal behavior. However, this is not saying that in- 
telligence is incompatible with inherent tendencies or pro- 
clivities. We may not find the hard and fast, inflexible 
type of hereditary reactions in man and the higher animals; 
but this is not saying that hereditary reactions are not found 
in man as well as in the lower animals. On the contrary, 
modern biology gives us every reason to believe that man’s 
hereditary endowments are richer than those of other ani- 
mals. Moreover, all that we know of human behavior for- 
bids us to believe that man’s hereditary endowments are 
simply of the nature of hereditary capacities. There seem 





9“Purely instinctive behavior is almost unknown in the case of 
the higher animals, and especially in man. There is much reason 
to believe that it is only on the first occasion on which an example 
of innate behavior occurs that it can be regarded as purely in- 
stinctive, and that directly this behavior is modified by experience, 
even by the experience derived from the first performance, it is no 
longer purely instinctive. It might seem that such a view as this 
might lead us to reject the concept of instinct when dealing with 
man, but there is so much reason to believe that different forms 
of human behavior depend in varying degrees on innate dispositions 
that we cannot ignore the factor of heredity.” Rivers, Psychology 
and Politics, p. 31. 


& 
280 PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF HUMAN ‘SOCIETY 


also to be a great number of hereditary reaction tendencies 
or proclivities of varying strength. The nervous system of 
man, as we have seen, is largely made up of inherited struc- 
ture. While many of its connections are acquired after 
birth, many are found ready-made at birth, while many 
more regularly appear in the course of the normal develop- 
ment from childhood to maturity. The bulk of biological 
and psychological opinion inclines to the view that the native 
impulses, or purely natural tendencies of man, are due to 
these hereditary connections established in the nervous sys- 
tem by means of organic variation and natural selection, just 
as the grosser bodily traits of a species are established by the 
same means. Certainly if we accept the conclusions of mod- 
ern biology, we cannot escape the conclusion that all proc- 
esses of life have an organic basis and therefore ultimately 
an inherited basis. Moreover, the general theory of or- 
ganic evolution necessitates the conclusion that the nervous 
system of man is richer in inherited connections and quali- 
ties than that of any other animal. 

However, the modern theory of heredity, especially Men- 
del’s law, is obviously against the conclusion that a few sim- 
ple traits or reaction tendencies which we can call “instincts” 
are sufficient to cover man’s neuro-psychic heredity. The 
modern theory regards the inherited nature of man as made 
up of a great many, almost an indefinite number, of unit 
traits. There is justice, therefore, in Professor Bernard’s 
conclusion that the inherited equipment of man “does not 
consist of Mr. McDougall’s seven or twelve or thirteen or 
more instincts, nor of Professor James’s forty or fifty in- 
stincts, but of hundreds or even thousands of much simpler 
processes, reflexes, etc., which underlie habits and are lost 
in them in their completed form.” ?° In other words, man 
has an indefinite number of inherited reactions or instinctive 


10 Ajierican Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXIX, p. 671 (1924). 
Compare also Bernard, Instinct, p. 522. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 281 


tendencies, a rich neuro-psychic heredity, upon which he 
builds a correspondingly rich experience and habit structure. 
Man’s heredity is the most complex in the animal world. 
The matter will become simpler, perhaps, if we remember 
that the hereditary level of behavior is made up apparently 
of three subordinate levels: first the chemo-tropic, or the 
reactions of simple and relatively undifferentiated tissue to 
chemical or physical stimuli; second, the reflex, or fixed, 
relatively unconscious reactions of inherited automatic action 
structures, such as the instincts of the insects; and third, 
native impulses or instinctive tendencies made up of chains 
or series of purposeful reflexes exceedingly variable and 
modifiable. ‘The so-called instincts of man are of this latter 
type. They are accordingly not fixed and unalterable, but 
are subject to intelligent modification according to changes 
in the environment. They are little more than a complex 
series of more or less generalized inherited tendencies which 
fit man to cope with his environment fairly well from the 
start, but the most important function of which is to form 
a basis for the development of habit, character, and intelli- 
gence. “Native impulses” or “instinctive tendencies’ are, 
therefore, happier terms for this hereditary element in hu- 
man behavior than the term “instinct.” 
However, it should not be overlooked that most of the 
psychologists, when they have employed the word “instinct”’ 
in discussing the elements in human behavior, have meant 
very nearly what we have just called a native impulse or 
an instinctive tendency. Thus Drever, in his discussion of 
instinct in man, insists that, psychologically, instinct must 
be: regarded as impulse; not all impulses, to be sure, but 
impulse “when and so far as it is not itself determined by 
previous experience.” 14 Professor Dewey also would use 
the term instinct in a similar way, though he prefers the: 





11 Drever, Instinct in Man, p. 88. 


282 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


term impulse on account of the frequent misunderstanding 
of the former term.’” 

Practically all psychologists, with very few exceptions, 
recognize, then, the importance of instinctive tendencies as 
an element in human behavior. Those who would give the 
greater weight to experience and environment in explaining 
the actual behavior of men would find the chief importance 
of instinctive tendencies or native impulses to be in the fur- 
nishing of raw material out of which habits are formed. 
Even so, however, we do not get rid of the importance of 
instinctive tendencies or®of the original nature of man. The 
question remains how far this hereditary element in be- 
havior can be dissociated by scientific analysis from the vast 
mass of habits, attitudes, and values which most psycholo- 
gists and sociologists recognize as constituting the bulk of 
the behavior of civilized men. 

If, again, we remember that the instinctive element stands 
for the purely animal factor in human behavior, this analysis 
will not be so difficult, though science knows of no way as 
yet to make it exact. Let us remember, however, that man’s 
instinctive tendencies or animal impulses only started him 
on the pathway of his social and cultural evolution; that in- 
stead of following the pathway of instinct or animal im- 
pulse, man succeeded in becoming human and in developing 
culture to the extent that he followed the divergent pathway 
of intelligence; and that, while his animal impulses persist, 
man, through use of intelligence, has been making new action 
patterns other than those inherited in his nervous system, and 
in this way has been remaking himself and his world. 


The Marks of Instinctive Tendencies 


If we wish to detect the instinctive element in human be- 
havior we will, then, first of all, study the behavior of ani- 





12 Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 105, note. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 283 


mals closely related to man. When such behavior is uni- 
versal in a given species under all environmental conditions, 
we rightly believe that it has an inherited basis. Univer- 
sality of behavior among human beings would also, accord- 
ingly, seem to be another presumption for an instinctive 
element in human behavior. But universality as a criterion 
of the instinctive among human beings must be accepted cau- 
tiously. Tool making, for example, is universal in the 
human species. While it may have an instinctive element 
in it, it may also be produced by the higher intelligence which 
universally belongs to man as a species. Universality is, 
alone, an unsafe criterion. Again, we should expect the nat- 
ural or animal impulses to show themselves more clearly in 
early childhood before the individual has accumulated ex- 
perience or felt the prolonged pressure of environment. This 
third criterion is also unsafe to use, however, unless it is used 
along with the first two mentioned. 

There is a fourth indication of the instinctive or hereditary 
element in human behavior. The primary human emotions, 
such as anger, joy, grief, and fear, are universal among all 
men. They exist in all human beings regardless of culture 
or specific environment. They vary from individual to in- 
dividual only quantitatively, or in their intensity, not quali- 
 tatively. We must conclude, therefore, that they are closely 
associated with certain hereditary reaction tendencies. These 
reaction tendencies are, of course, not always of the nature 
of gross bodily movements, but may be in the glandular 
secretions and in the movement of the visceral organs. While 
there is no reason to think that all hereditary reaction tenden- 
cies have emotions attached to them, as some psychologists 
have claimed, yet apparently some do. Therefore, the emo- 
tions and the instinctive tendencies of man are closely associ- 
ated. When the emotions are deeply stirred or greatly 
roused we call them “passions.” Common sense has usually 
associated the passions of men with their animal impulses; 


284 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


and scientific analysis shows that there is good reason for 
this belief. The student does not need to be told that the 
passions of men may at times play a great part in human 
behavior, even in group behavior; so therefore, also, does 
the instinctive element. Here, then, is another means of 
analyzing out the instinctive element in human behavior 
under certain circumstances. 


The Psychological Conception of the Instinctive Element in 
Human Behavior 


The conception of human instinctive tendencies at which 
we arrive, therefore, is that they are not like the hard and 
fast pattern reactions of some of the lower animals, but are 
simply the inborn tendencies of human nature. For the 
purpose of the sociologist it is sufficient to lump all of these 
inborn tendencies together and call them “instinctive tenden- 
cies.’ 1% We have to recognize that there are in man no 
definite specific instincts so well marked that we can point 
them out and say that this form of behavior is due to that 
particular instinct and that form to another instinct. Spe- 
cialized instincts and instinctive activities of this sort do not 
exist in the human species, unless we include in these terms 
the simple reflexes which are purely individualistic in their 
reference. 

Another point which the student will do well to bear in- 
mind is that, on account of the complexity of man’s nervous 
system, all sorts of combinations of instinctive tendencies 
with one another and with habits and intelligence are pos- 





18 Even emotional reaction patterns, so far:as they are inborn, 
may conveniently, for sociological purposes, be grouped with other 
inborn tendencies. See previous paragraph. It may be pointed out 
that “instinctive tendencies” even in this broad sense may be grouped 
under two heads, “hereditary organic predispositions” and “hereditary 
nervous predispositions,’ the former being connected more with the 
gross structure of the body, the latter more with the structure of the 
nervous system. ’ 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 285 


sible. The particular combination of instinctive tendencies 
made will, in most cases, depend upon the circumstances in 
the environment. In general there are indefinite possibili- 
ties of combination and synthesis of all the elements in 
human nature. Instinctive tendencies coalesce, run into each 
other, and reénforce each other in such complex ways in 
the actual behavior of men that the only figure in external 
nature, perhaps, which we can find to express it is the 
coalescing, crossing, and reénforcing of currents in a very 
complex electric field. Not only do various instinctive tend- 
encies unite in certain modes of individual behavior and 
of social adaptation, but they shift in their combinations of 
one with another, so that in civilized society it 1s impossible 
to make out any very simple and clearly defined social be- 
havior which we may call instinctive. This is all the more 
true because of the fact that in human societies instinctive 
tendencies are always conditioned by the culture of the group 
and are frequently overlaid with a mass of habits, customs, 
and traditions which make the discernment of the instinctive 
element not possible through, observation, but only through 
logical inference. It is for this reason that some social psy- 
chologists say that there is “instinct” but that there are no 
“instincts,” and that others say that “instincts are hypotheses 
rather than facts.”?4 The reply is obviously that science is 
concerned with hypotheses as much as with facts, and that 
the hypothesis of inherited reaction tendencies is quite as 
necessary to explain human behavior as the hypothesis of 
heredity is necessary in biology to explain bodily structure. 
There is just as much use for hypothesis in the one case as 
in the other. Obviously, however, even after we have our 
hypothesis made so carefully that it seems to cover all the 
facts that we are seeking to explain, we should not appeal to 
such an hypothesis to explain facts that can be more easily 


14 Compare Faris, “Are Instincts Data or Hypotheses?” in Amer- 
ican Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXVII, pp. 184-196. 


286 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


explained by observable facts. In other words, explanation 
through the animal impulses of human nature, or instinctive 
tendencies, like explanations through race, should, as we 
have already said, be the last resort in social science instead 
of the first. 


Instinctive Tendencies as Factors in Present Social Life — 


The practice of nineteenth century sociologists was to ex- 
plain social situations and social behavior in terms of human 
“desires,” and the desires were called the ‘‘social forces.” 
Some recent social thinkers continue this practice, and ex- 
plain social situations in terms of human wishes or desires. 
Thus, Professor W. I. Thomas finds that there are four 
fundamental human desires which characterize all men, and 
which he thinks are adequate to explain conscious social 
behavior. These four fundamental desires are: (1) the de- 
sire for new experience, (2) the desire for security, (3) the 
desire for recognition, (4) and the desire for response.*® 
It is scarcely necessary to say that almost no psychologists 
would agree that this is an exhaustive list of fundamental, 
universal human desires. Tht list might easily be added 
to,'® and, after all, the classification seems less secure from 
a biological standpoint than the usual classification of all 
impulses and desires of a fundamental nature into those con- 
nected with nutrition, reproduction, and defense. 

The great objection to the use of the human wishes, or 
desires, as adequate scientific explanations for human social 
behavior, however, is that wishes or desires are always com- 


15 See Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
pp. 488-490; see also Thomas’s statement in The Polish Peasant, 
Volalinn. 22.573. 

16 Compare the list proposed by Snedden in his Educational So- 
ciology, Pp. 244-245. It might be difficult in Thomas’s classification 
to find a clear place for such fundamental human desires as these 
for strength, health, knowledge, and beauty. Professor Small’s 
classification (see p. 114) seems equally valuable for sociological 
purposes. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 287 


plexes of instinctive tendencies, habits, and intelligence. 
Hence they do not complete the psychological analysis of a 
situation. It is not difficult to show this. They are such 
indefinite mixtures of these three elements, with, of course, 
the fourth element of feeling added, that nothing is gained 
in scientific clearness by the use of such terms of explana- 
tion. The word “desire,” for example, is extremely am- 
biguous. As some use it the element of impulse would be 
emphasized ; as others use it the element of feeling would be 
emphasized. In nineteenth century writers it was the ele- 
ment of feeling which was emphasized.17 Professor Bo- 
gardus, however, rightly insists that the desires which are 
fundamental and universal in all men must represent uni- 
versal “life urges’; +8 and therefore they presuppose a uni- 
versal biological element. In other words, if desires or 
wishes are universal regardless of culture or environment, 
there must be in them an inherited reaction tendency. As 
Professor Bernard points out, only the name has_ been 
changed.’® Desires and wishes still need to be explained, 
and the explanation of these, as they are partly the result of 
habit and environment, is not wholly a matter for the psy- 
chologist. 

We pointed out in Chapter III that the factors in social 
situations, or the social forces, are always complex. Among 
these factors we always have original human nature. And 
instinctive tendencies along with inherited capacities make 
up original human nature. Therefore, instinctive tendencies 
are among the original social forces. We come again, there- 
fore, to the conclusion which we have already reached, that 





17 Compare Ward, Psychic Factors of Civilization, pp. 52-54; also 
Pure Sociology, pp. 99-105 and 124-132. 

18 See Journal of Applied Sociology, Vol. 1X, p. 58 (Sept., 1924). 
_19See American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XXIX, p. 672. It 
may also be remarked that the use of Freudian terms, such as 
“defense mechanism,” etc., should not conceal the fact that names 
have merely been changed. 


288 PSYCHOLOGY) OF |HUMAWN SOCIETY 


the social behavior of men is always an indefinite mixture 
of instinctive tendencies, habits, and intelligence. 


Instinctive Tendencies and Human Institutions 


We are now prepared to see what share, if any, instinc- 
tive tendencies have had in shaping human institutions. Evi- 
dently many factors other than purely animal impulses must 
enter into the formation of what we call an institution, since 
we do not find what we may properly call institutions below 
the human level. The organization of animal groups, how- 
ever, we have seen, is largely a matter of instinct, habituation 
to the environment playing only a minor part. But human 
social life and organization, we have also seen, is genetically 
Telated to animal social life. In other words, social or- 
ganization was once quite entirely a matter of instinctive 
reactions; and even though human social organization may 
show many other factors at work, it is scarcely probable that 
the instinctive element is still not important, if, as Professor 
Bernard contends, “the reflexes and the instincts are still 
powerful in the direction and control even of human activi- 
ties.” 


Instinctive Tendencies and the Family 


The part which instinctive tendencies play in human insti- 
tutions is made evident by the well-known fact that there 
are many foreshadowings of human institutions below the 
human level. Thus, the family is an institution in human 
society; but the family group exists as a more or less per- 
manent social unit, not only among certain of the anthropoid 
apes, but also among many other animals. The foundations 
of the family life of human beings, therefore, are evidently 
instinctive, even though the family, as we know it, is always 
an institution established by the sanction of certain modes 
of behavior by human groups. We find in the family mani- 
festations of two great primary instinctive tendencies of hu- 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 289 


man nature, sex‘ attraction and parental love. These in- 
stinctive tendencies practically dominate the family life, 
whatever its varied institutional forms may be. Not only 
is sex attraction the basis for entering upon family life in a 
free society, but parental love is perhaps the largest factor 
in the stability of the family group among all peoples. This 
is a reasonable inference from the fact that in the United 
States, where relatively free divorce exists, divorce is four 
and five times as common among childless couples as among 
those who have children. Parental love is, of course, only 
one factor in the situation; but we have no reason to doubt 
that it is one of the strongest natural bonds between the 
parents and that it has an instinctive or organic basis. Thus 
we see that instinctive tendencies play a very great part in 
the institution of the family. 

What was meant when we said, in a former chapter, that 
animal impulses, or instinctive tendencies furnish the begin- 
nings of adaptations between individuals, and so the primitive 
basis of social organization must now be clear. We see, 
also, that natural impulses furnish persistent motives which 
run through the family life and through nearly all institu- 
tions. From one point of view, indeed, the institution is a 
device to harness and control natural impulses so that they 
will serve the welfare of the community. This is often dif- 
ficult to accomplish, and we often find strong tendencies to 
revert to the pure animal impulse, even in the most civilized 
human communities. For example, the rational control of 
sex and parental instincts through laws and moral standards 
relating to marriage and the family has always been, and 
probably always will remain, one of the most perplexing 
problems of civilization. The most that intelligence and cul- 
ture can do to control such instinctive impulses will never 
free human society from their dominance in one sense; the 
most that can be done is to regulate their expression in ways 
which will work to social advantage. A wise society will, 


290 PSYCHOLOGY: OF (HUMAN SQOGRETY 


indeed, as we shall see, work with, rather than against, such 
furrdamental impulses of human nature. 


Instinctive Tendencies and the Larger Human Groups 


Just as the family life has at work in it certain original 
impulses of man, so also other natural groups owe their 
origin more or less to these impulses. Man, like most of the 
other higher animals, has always, so far as we can discover, 
lived in groups larger than the family. The reasons for 
this we have already pointed out. The necessities of defense, 
the advantages in obtaining a food supply and in caring for 
offspring, led men from the very beginning to associate in 
groups larger than the family. We do not need to assume, 
therefore, any special gregarious impulse in man; yet man’s 
whole original nature as given him by organic evolution seems 
to be set towards sociability. In protecting himself against 
wild beasts, in obtaining a food supply, and in defending 
himself against his human enemies, man has found it abso- 
lutely necessary to live in groups larger than the family in 
order to survive. The family life with the care of offspring 
also placed a premium upon group life. Ages before man 
appeared, natural selection brought it about accordingly that 
most of the higher animals should live in comparatively 
large groups. Their safety lay in such a life. Thus it is 
not surprising that we find in man powerful natural im- 
pulses which lead him to seek the companionship of his fel- 
lows, to keep closely at home with his own group, and to 
follow his group in practically all things. We do not need 
to assume any special “herd instinct,” because so many in- 
stinctive tendencies are involved in this tendency to live in 
large groups; but that man’s social tendencies are natural 
and not merely the result of habit, reflective intelligence, and 
the pressure of environment can scarcely be doubted. 

We should remember what has already been said about 
social tendencies, at least so far as the smaller natural groups 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 291 


are concerned, having been bred into man through natural 
selection and thus affecting practically all of the impulses 
of his nature. We saw that group life has been absolutely 
necessary for the survival of the human species. The full 
social consequences of this fundamental fact of man’s orig- 
inal nature have not been explored. But man’s love of com- 
panionship, his fear of being alone, his sheeplike tendency to 
follow his group, his passion for conformity, all must have 
been built more or less upon original animal impulses asso- 
ciated with the living in relatively large groups. Yet, as we 
pointed out, man’s sociability is always narrow when it is 
of the instinctive rather than the rational sort. It should 
also be noted by the student that no less than three of the 
fundamental human desires listed by Professor Thomas are 
more or less connected with group life; namely, the desire 
for security, the desire for recognition, and the desire for 
response. These are fundamental human desires only be- 
cause the original nature of man is a group nature. It may 
not appear that the desire for security has anything to do 
with living in groups; but at least living in groups is a means 
of security; while the desire for recognition, or the love of 
approbation of others, and the desire for response presup- 
pose group life. These last two have every mark of being 
among the most primitive of human traits, since they mani- 
fest themselves in children at a very early age, and are found 
among many of the higher animals. 


Instinctive Tendencies and Human Conflicts 


Another instinctive tendency whose workings illustrate 
the influence of natural impulses upon human institutions is 
that of combativeness. Practically all of the higher ani- 
mals show well-developed fighting instincts. Most of them 
fight only when attacked or when in competition for food or 
mates, and the fighting is usually by individuals and not by 
groups. Some animals, however, have developed their 


292 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


fighting instincts into predatory instincts. Many writers 
would class man in this latter group, but the evidence on the 
whole seems to place him in the former. The predatory 
tendencies of human societies are probably complex outcomes 
of their traditions, habits, and environment rather than of 
mere natural impulses. Existing predatory tendencies of 
highly civilized people are probably to be ascribed to preda- 
tory traditions from the stage of barbarism, which have not 
yet, unfortunately, been eradicated from our civilization. 
They are not, as is often said, simply manifestations of 
original human nature. However, children and adults both 
show such strong combative impulses when attacked or in 
a competitive struggle, that we are forced to regard fighting 
as a very strong inherited reaction tendency in the human 
species. This tendency is probably seen at its purest in the 
fighting of two boys rather than in the combats of human 
groups. It should be noted that the fighting impulse, like 
many other natural propensities, seems to differ in its strength 
in the two sexes. That it is stronger in the male than in the 
female is shown quite conclusively by the fact that little 
boys from their earliest years, regardless of their training, 
are more prone to fight than little girls. 

Now while the fighting impulse in man is natural and con- 
nected with the fundamental process of defense against ene- 
mies, most of its manifestations in group behavior are the 
result of cultural development. Reflection leads to the or- 
ganizing and training of this inherited reaction tendency so 
that it will work for the good of the whole group, especially 
for the protection of the group against its enemies. Hence 
the development of methods of organizing and exploiting this 
natural tendency of man for the good of the group. With- 
out the fighting tendency in the original nature of the indi- 
vidual, military institutions and warfare could never have 
got their hold upon human societies; and, as we have already 
seen, government has developed largely in connection with 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 293 


military institutions. Thus the fighting impulse has had a 
large influence upon the development of human institutions 
and especially upon political organization. The extreme per- 
version of this impulse is seen when fighting becomes a habit 
carried on, not for the sake of defense, but for predatory 
gain or even for its own sake. The exploitation and organ- 
ization of the natural combative impulses of man are, there- 
fore, practices which are fraught with the gravest danger to 
civilization. 

This danger in the course of civilization has become recog- 
nized within national groups, but not sufficiently between 
such groups. Within national and smaller groups the fight- 
ing impulse has always been recognized as an impediment to 
social harmony. The removal of unnecessary stimuli to this 
impulse has accordingly been one of the great aims of social 
policy and social reform. While this problem has never 
been more than partly solved by the great groups of men, 
our present world-wide civilization has given rise to an even 
greater problem; namely, the avoidance of occasions for 
conflict between nations and the getting rid of the war sys- 
tem which organizes and exploits the fighting impulse of 
the individual. 

The fighting impulse is, however, socially too valuable to 
be got rid of, even if that were possible. As in the case of 
other natural tendencies we must try to discover ways of 
securing its expression in accordance with social advantage, 
which means, ultimately, in accordance with the advantage 
of humanity at large. The fighting impulse does not need 
to be exercised against human beings. Its legitimate ex- 
pression in civilized society is in combating moral and social 
evils which prevent humanity from realizing its ideals, and, 
as William James suggested, in combating those forces in 
physical nature which offer impediments to man’s progress. 
Physical conflict between individuals and groups of individ- 
uals does not need to be encouraged in human society in order 


204 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


to keep the fighting impulse alive. Such conflict makes the 
problem of its control within rational bounds much more 
difficult. 


Instinctive Tendencies and the Economic Life 


Still another instinctive tendency which illustrates the im- 
portance of such tendencies in the social life of man is the 
possessive impulse or greed.2? Many animals below man 
show this instinct highly developed, though they have rarely 
the intelligence to exercise it successfully. Animals not only 
seize and store food, but sometimes have their feeding 
grounds from which they drive intruders. Some even ap- 
propriate objects and hold them when they are of no par- 
ticular use to them. Children and savages, as well as civi- | 
lized adults, show similar tendencies. The tendency to 
appropriate may be shown by the group not less than by the 
individual. All groups of men lay claim to certain feed- 
ing, camping, or hunting grounds. The desire to possess 
whether on the part of the group or the individual is evi- 
dently an outgrowth of the impulse to appropriate. The de- 
velopment of private property as an institution, and also of 
group or public property, has depended upon this tendency 
in human nature. Just how it will express itself will, of 
course, depend upon conditions. Private property as an in- 
stitution has been an historical development, and, in the form 
in which we now have it, is a relatively late and extreme 
development due to the traditions of Western civilization. 
However, the impulse to appropriate has manifested itself 
so uniformly under all conditions of human culture that it 
must be considered a permanent tendency in human nature 
which must be taken into account in organizing the relations 
of men to things and to one another. It manifests itself as 
much under systems of common ownership as under systems 


20 Also called the acquisitive impulse. See Tawney, The Acquisi- 
tive Society. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 298 


of private ownership. The rational control of this instinc- 
tive tendency in accordance with human welfare is accord- 
ingly one of the great problems of our civilization, and one 
which we are as yet far from successful in solving, prob- 
ably because we have developed traditions which are not 
favorable to its rational social control. 


Conclusions 


Now these four illustrations of the part which animal 
impulses or instinctive tendencies play in the family, in the 
larger groups of men, in the conflicts of individuals and 
groups, and in man’s economic life are sufficient to show that 
innate propensities of human nature affect very greatly even 
existing social institutions and social organization. They 
must be taken into account, therefore, in any attempt at 
the reconstruction of our institutions and our civilization. 
What we have just described, however, is not the working 
of specific instincts determining definite social behavior, but 
rather the welling-up of groups or complexes of natural 
human impulses, or instinctive tendencies, in various fields 
of group behavior. The hereditary factor in human behavior 
may not yet be fully understood from the standpoint of psy- 
chology, but it undoubtedly is there, and it is a task of 
sociology and social psychology to show how it can be 
controlled. This problem is, as yet, far from a satisfactory 
solution from a scientific standpoint; but at least three con- 
clusions stand out which are worth bearing in mind because 
they may help us. (1) Natural human impulses are the raw 
materials for human institutions in the same sense that they 
are for the habits of the individual. (2) The intelligence 
and the innate propensities of man work together in all 
human institutions. This general truth is unquestioned by 
those who understand human psychology. What remains to 
be done is to show just the way in which these work together 
in general and also in particular cases. (3) Human institu- 


296 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tions are a series of devices to control man’s animal impulses 
to social advantage. The higher civilized social life is only 
possible through the control of these impulses by more or 
less rationally devised institutions. However, institutions 
are not always devised as rationally as they might be and, 
therefore, fail to control natural impulses to the best social 
advantage. This problem we shall take up later. 


Instinctive Tendencies and Culture 


The student will remember that we have defined culture as 
tool making, institution making, and value or standard mak- 
ing. Culture, in this sense, is entirely an acquired character, 
as is shown by the fact that none of the brutes possess it, 
though this is not saying that the production of culture does 
not utilize man’s instinctive tendencies or native impulses. 
Culture conditions man’s natural impulses but it does not 
supplant them. The way in which these natural impulses ex- 
press themselves will, however, as we have repeatedly pointed 
out, depend upon the culture of the group. 

But the question remains, how did culture get started? If 
we include language as well as physical tools in culture, it is 
evident that culture is coeval with man and started at the 
very beginning of the existence of human society. It could 
not have been produced by accumulated experience. It must 
have sprung, therefore, from the original nature of man. 
But this original nature has in it capacity for intelligence as 
well as natural impulses. Because all men everywhere build 
cultures, so far as we can discover, we are probably justified 
in accepting Wissler’s conclusion that, “man builds cultures 
because he cannot help it; there is a drive in his protoplasm 
that carries him forward even against his will.”*! But 
this is not saying that culture is produced simply by in- 
stinctive tendencies. The instinctive tendencies of man, as 





21 Wissler, Man and Culture, p. 265. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 297 


we have seen, do not differ greatly from the animals nearest 
to him. Yet none of these animals build cultures. Obviously, 
culture is a complex of instinctive tendencies and intelligence. 
But it depends even more upon man’s capacities to form 
habits than upon innate propensities. Given the capacity 
for intelligence, the inherited reaction tendencies of man, 
and man’s power of habit formation, and culture would in- 
evitably develop as we have tried to show already in Chapter 
II. Of course certain hereditary reactions or natural im- 
pulses, such as curiosity and constructiveness, would play 
a considerable part in the formation of culture. The in- 
herited speech center in the brain had even more to do with 
the production of culture in primitive human society than 
such so-called instincts as curiosity and constructiveness, or 
the instinct of workmanship. Probably the first form of cul- 
ture was language and the first “tool” the spoken word. 
Culture from the beginning has been a series of devices, we 
may admit, to mediate and control man’s natural impulses ; 
but the guiding, creative factor has been man’s capacity to 
profit by experience, or his intelligence. We cannot accept 
the view, therefore, that all culture has been developed to 
satisfy original natural impulses or instinctive tendencies. If 
this had been the case there never would have been any con- 
flict between culture and natural impulses such as we find. 
Neither can we accept the doctrine that the general pattern 
of man’s culture has been fixed once for all by his instinctive 
tendencies, much as the general pattern of a spider’s web is 
fixed by heredity for a given species of spider. On the con- 
trary, we must always remember that culture in all of its 
aspects, whether language, tool making, art, religion, or gov- 
ernment, has been built up by a learning process. This proc- 
ess changes not only the particular form of language, tools, 
art, religion, and government, but may change even the gen- 
eral pattern of culture. Thus war, we have seen, was not 
always a part of human culture. According to the best re- 


298 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


searches of anthropologists, it seems to be a relatively late 
and intrusive element.” For the last ten thousand years, 
however, war has been a very prominent, if not a dominant, 
factor in culture. But if man learned to make war, he can 
doubtless learn to unmake it, or to get rid of it. 

Just as we concluded regarding human institutions that 
they represented complexes of instinct, habit, and intelligence, 
so we may conclude regarding culture. From the beginning, 
however, culture has been in one way or another a means 
of control over man’s instinctive impulses. Even the very 
devices of culture, which have been invented to secure the 
gratification of natural impulses, have reacted upon those 
impulses and more or less controlled their expression. Conse- 
quently, there has been opportunity for culture to become 
repressive of natural impulses and so there has appeared a 
discrepancy between culture and the original nature of man. 


Instincts and Existing Civilization 


The instinctive tendencies of man are not sufficient to 
adapt him to any high degree of culture or civilization. They 
would be much better guides if we were still living a wild 
life in the woods than they are in the complex civilized 
society of the present.?* It must be remembered that the 
natural impulses of man have not changed essentially during 
the last twenty-five thousand years, during which time our 
present civilization has grown up from the feeblest be- 
ginnings. If any modification has taken place in man’s 
natural impulses during this time, it is not certain. These 
impulses could be changed only by changing man’s natural 
heredity. There can be scarcely any doubt that this fact 
explains some of the difficulties which highly civilized so- 
cieties experience in securing such adjustments by individuals 


22 See Perry, The Growth of Cvilization, Chaps. VII, X. 
_ 28 Compare Thorndike’s statement on page 96; also Ogburn, Social 
Change, Part V. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 299 


as are required by the conditions of their life. As Sir 
Francis Galton has remarked, “Man was barbarous but yes- 
terday, and therefore it is not to be expected that the natural 
aptitudes. of his race should. already have become moulded 
into accordance with his very recent advance. We, men of 
the present centuries, are like animals suddenly transplanted 
among new circumstances of climate and of food: our in- 
stincts fail us under the altered circumstances.” 4 
Moreover, there is not much prospect that man will be 
able to alter, on an extensive scale, the original tendencies 
of his nature; on the contrary how the animal impulses of 
man’s nature may be rationally controlled in accordance with 
social advantage must always remain a practical problem for 
human society. This, indeed, is one of the main problems 
on which both psychology and sociology seek to throw light. 
Many writers have held that modern civilization, on ac- 
count of its mechanical industry and the many other artificial 
conditions of life which it imposes upon the individual, is 
out of harmony with man’s natural impulses. As we have 
seen, the culture of a group necessarily controls the way in 
which the natural impulses of man get expression. It may 
direct them wisely, or it may repress them needlessly. A 
great many writers think that our present civilization need- 
lessly represses and balks man’s original impulses. This 
produces a large amount of discontent and unhappiness. It 
is evident that if man’s original nature adapts him more to 
a wild life in the woods than to a complex culture, it will 
not be easy to get an adjustment between this original nature 
and the conditions of modern civilization.2> Even so, how- 
ever, something can be done in the training of original 
nature, which we have seen to be readily modified, and also 
something can be done to make social conditions less re- 





24 Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 337. 
25 See the careful discussion of this problem by Professor Ogburn, 
Social Change, Part V. 


300 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


pressive of harmless natural impulses than they frequently 
now are. While we cannot return to the conditions of 
primitive life, we may find outlets for man’s natural im- 
pulses which will be at the same time advantageous for both 
society and the individual. Professor W. F. Ogburn points 
out that this is to be done, in part, through recreations and 
amusements.”® Many of the failures in adjustment to cul- 
ture may be avoided if we provide in recreations and amuse- 
ments proper outlets for the natural and harmless tendencies 
of human nature. Thus rational recreations are devices of 
great value to society in bringing about adjustment between 
human nature and culture. 

It is easily possible to overemphasize the repressive ele- 
ment in culture. Probably when a culture is well-balanced, 
or rationally developed, no great degree of repression will 
be found to exist in it necessarily. It should be remem- 
bered, however, that all higher civilization involves disci- 
pline, control, and restraint upon the individual; but it is 
probable that such discipline, control, and restraint fall as 
much upon unsocialized individual habits as upon unsocialized 
natural impulses. It is easy for any of us to get a “balked 
disposition” in our complex civilization, because we con- 
stantly run up against things which are opposed to our hab- 
its, desires, and impulses. The remedy in most cases would 
seem to be in the education, or rather reéducation, of the 
individual, not in the change of culture and of the social 
order. The overstressing of the instinctive element in the 
social behavior of man quite naturally inclines to the view 
that social organization and civilization should be so devel- 
oped as to harmonize with man’s natural or instinctive im- 
pulses. This is practically the position of the followers of 
Freud, though it is a much older doctrine and is to be found 





26 Ogburn, op. cit., Part V. Professor Patrick in The Psychology 
of Relaxation had earlier pointed to the same conclusion. 


"INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 301 


fully developed in the writings of Rousseau. But if we had 
a civilization which harmonized with man’s natural impulses 
it would be more nearly on the level of barbarism than our 
present civilization. .A culture which was adjusted to the 
natural man would probably be a very barbarous culture. 
Rather, the proper social development of our culture should 
take us further from the instinctive level toward the rational 
level. Not impulse, but intelligence, must be the ideal of 
civilization. 

However, it must be acknowledged that the existence of 
a strong natural propensity in human nature furnishes a 
presumption in its favor, and that the principle of economy 
would dictate that it should be utilized, if possible, to the 
advantage of society. This is what all sensible developments 
in civilization have tried to do. It is the rational modifica- 
tion of man’s original tendencies which has built up civi- 
lization. The problem of civilization, therefore, is to find 
suitable ways of expressing natural impulses in accordance 
with the demands of an increasingly complex and more deli- 
cately organized social life; or, to put the problem posi- 
tively, to find ways of harnessing man’s animal impulses to 
work with and for civilizing standards. If any particular | 
natural impulse can find no useful place in our civilization, 
however, there should be no reason why its expression should 
not be forbidden altogether, or suppressed. We have seen 
that man’s natural impulses or original tendencies are modi- 
fiable. Even the most imperious of human instincts, the sex 
instinct, has been denied expression in many thousands of 
individuals in every civilization, either as a result of eco- 
nomic or religious conditions, without serious harm either to 
the individuals concerned or to their groups. Nevertheless, 
as we have just acknowledged, the principle of economy 
would seem to indicate that the wiser procedure in our social 
life is not to suppress natural impulses unnecessarily, but 
to find ways in which they may be expressed in accordance 


g0o2 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


with social advantage. This can be done with practically 
all of the more important natural tendencies or urges of 
human nature. Mere repressive measures and policies in 
human society are never as wise as measures and policies 
which will utilize to the fullest degree all those springs of 
human energy which we term instinctive tendencies or na- 
tive impulses. Thus, it would be manifestly very foolish for 
society not to make use to the fullest degree of that natural 
impulse in the women of its population to care for children 
which we call “the maternal instinct”: rather society should 
aim to utilize that natural impulse to the fullest extent pos- 
sible, controlling it and, of course, enlightening it to meet in 
the most rational way the social need for the proper care of 
childhood. Education, rational direction, and rational social 
expression are evidently what are needed for man’s natural 
impulses. 


Reversions to the Brutelike Level of Behavior 


Until we understand how to control man’s natural or ani- 
mal impulses to social advantage, we must expect, perhaps, 
to find, every now and then, in our social life reversions to 
a more or less animal level of behavior. These reversions 
are apt to occur under all conditions of emotional excitement, 
such as occur in crowds, in wars, and in conflicts of all sorts 
between individuals or groups. They may also occur, how- 
ever, owing to the failure of the agencies of social control, 
that 1s owing to the decadence of religion, moral standards, 
government, law, and education. Reversions to the animal- 
like level of behavior are favored by any decadence of the 
great civilizing ideas and values of higher culture. When 
these restraints drop away, men easily revert to the instinc- 
tive level of behavior. This is one explanation of the ex- 
istence of social evils. Many of the evils of society, however, 
are not due to man’s animal impulses but to wrong habits, 
wrong traditions, and bad judgment. Nevertheless, from 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 303 


one point of view, it is true that many of the animal impulses 
of human nature are a constant drag upon civilization, and 
we cannot understand the existence of evil in human rela- 
tions without taking this into account. Therefore, all emo- 
tionalism, all conditions of excitement which remove the 
restraints of culture upon our natural impulses, should be 
avoided so far as possible. Natural impulses, in other words, 
have to be under constant supervision and control, if they 
are not to interfere with rational social conduct. It is es- 
pecially for this reason that hostile conflicts between indi- 
viduals and groups are particularly to be dreaded, because 
they favor reversion to the animal level of behavior. Not 
only do wars and revolutions favor such relapses toward 
barbarism, but mobs also. The brutal deeds of mobs are 
to be explained by the fact that under the conditions of 
excitement in such a crowd, even the most civilized men 
may revert to the instinctive level of behavior. It is safe 
to conclude that conduct of the highest type is only possible 
in human society when reflection is possible, and when at 
the same time the individual is conscious in the fullest degree 
of the social value of the standards which civilization has 
set up. Therefore, those persons who claim that the native 


_ impulses and emotions are good guides in social behavior 


would hurry society back again into barbarism. 


Instinctive Interests and Beliefs ?’ 


Interest, in the psychological sense, is the feeling side of 
attention. Now we attend to many objects because of our 
inherited reaction tendencies. From this it follows that all 
human beings have powerful instinctive interests. This 
being so, it also follows that the natural impulses of man 
are enlisted on the side of some beliefs rather than others. 





27 Instinctive beliefs are spoken of by many writers as “rationaliza- 
tions” of instincts or natural impulses. 


1 


304 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Modern psychology has demonstrated that the old theory 
that our interests and ideas are simply the result of our 
environment is radically false. Beside the acquired interests 
which the individual takes on from his environment, he has 
also powerful instinctive interests. Now these instinctive 
interests affect the development of his ideas and enlist his 
adherence to some beliefs rather than to others. What we 
think is largely an outcome of what we do; and what we 
do is influenced by our inherited reaction tendencies; so 
that what we think is also powerfully influenced by these 
tendencies. 

Ideas which are repressive of natural impulses do not get, 
therefore, a ready acceptance from men unless some strong, 
compelling reason is given for accepting them. The doctrine 
of celibacy, for example, has never found acceptance among 
men unless a strong supernatural sanction has been attached 
to it. The natural impulses of men are against the accept- 
ance of such a doctrine. Neither will men in general accept 
the doctrine that slavery is better than personal liberty, 
unless some strong reason is given for accepting such a 
belief; for this is again an idea which is opposed to man’s 
natural impulses. Again, optimism as an attitude is prob- 
ably natural, since it is seen commonly in savages and chil- 
dren; it is only reflective thought which brings one to such 
beliefs as pessimism or meliorism. These illustrations are 
sufficient to show how much natural impulses bias our inter- 
ests and beliefs. This is not saying that intelligence may not 
oppose natural impulse, or that reason is the slave of instinct 
and emotion. But it is saying that psychologists have dis- 
covered that our beliefs, like our actions, are mixtures of 
instinct, habit, and intelligence. 

This is true, perhaps, of even our most philosophical be- 
liefs. We may, perhaps, therefore rightly speak of instinc- 
tive beliefs. It is no argument, however, against the validity 
of a belief because there is a strong element in it of natural 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 305 


impulse. Probably many of the most valued traditions of 
human society have this element. Many hold that the belief 
_ in God is such an instinctive belief. Speaking of the uni- 
versal religious beliefs of mankind, Professor Gilbert Murray 
has said, for example: “It is only of late years that psychol- 
ogists have begun to realize the enormous dominion of those 
forces in man of which he is normally unconscious. We 
cannot escape easily from the grip of the blind powers be- 
neath the threshold. Indeed, as I see philosophy after 
philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the Friend 
behind phenomena, as I find that I, myself, cannot, except 
for a moment and by an effort, refrain from making the 
same assumption, it seems to me that perhaps here too we 
are under the spell of a very old ineradicable instinct. We 
are gregarious animals; our ancestors have been such for 
countless ages. We cannot help looking out on the world 
as gregarious animals do; we see it in terms of humanity 
and of fellowship. . . . And it may be, it may very possibly 
be, that in the matter of this Friend behind phenomena, our 
own yearning and our own almost ineradicable instinctive 
convictions, since they are certainly not founded on either 
reason or observation, are, in origin, the groping of a lonely- 
_souled gregarious animal to find its herd or its herd leader 
in the great spaces between the stars.” 

We may not, of course, accept this as an adequate scien- 
tific statement, but it is sufficient to indicate what practically 
all scientific psychology has concluded, that there is a bio- 
logical or instinctive element even in our most cherished 
beliefs.. 


Instincts and Social Progress 


In as much as animal gtoups show no social progress, it 
would seem improbable that the social progress of man has 
any of its springs in his instinctive tendencies or native 
impulses. It would seem that these must be regarded as the 


306 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


conditions rather than the causes of man’s social and cultural 
progress. Even so, the peculiarities of human natural im- 
pulses would undoubtedly be important conditions without 
which social progress would be impossible. It would be well 
also to recall Professor Dewey’s theory that the very rich- 
ness of man’s natural impulses is one of the things which 
makes social progress possible. This richness of natural 
impulses tends to break up, according to Dewey, the tyranny 
of custom. It would seem certain that there is much truth 
in this theory and that richness of hereditary tendencies 
would be necessary in any animal capable of social progress. 
A species like man which undergoes rapid change or progress 
must have great complexity of natural impulses and capacities 
in order to adapt himself to constantly changing conditions. 
We may also, perhaps, say that the complexity and plas- 
ticity of man’s natural impulses make them adapted, so to 
speak, to the future, and so make possible man’s adaptation 
to much more complex environments than those under which 
he developed. 

The common biological view of instinct as static is there- 
fore probably not quite correct. There are probably instinc- 
tive “drives” connected with many of the cultural activities 
of man which favor social progress.?® For example, such 
natural impulses as animal altruism, curiosity, acquisitiveness, 
and constructiveness have been positive rather than merely 
negative influences in man’s cultural evolution. This state- 
ment is especially true of man’s sympathetic and altruistic 
impulses which he shares with some of the brutes. If man 
had not had a relatively high degree of natural altruism 
toward the fellows of his immediate group, even the narrow 
sociability and cooperation of primitive life would have been 
impossible. Of course the natural, altruistic impulses of 
man are not sufficient for the demands of our complex civili- 





28 Compare Wissler, Man and Culture, Chap. XII. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 307 


zation and our world-wide human society; but it should not 
be overlooked that altruistic impulses, as well as egoistic, 
are native to man, and that upon the basis of natural altruism 
man has laid the foundations for social codrdination and 
cooperation of a wider and wider sort, which he has built 
up through habit and intelligence. This perception empha- 
sizes the conclusion that man’s progress depends upon much 
more than his intellect. Rather, while we may admit that 
man could never have entered upon the pathway of progress 
without higher intelligence, the facts which we have pre- 
sented seem to show that natural human impulses have also 
had much to do with social progress; at least that they are 
indispensable conditions of progress; and therefore that 
progress is an outcome of the whole nature of man, working 
together as an organic unity in relation to its environment, 
and not of any single factor in human nature. 


Instincts and Social Reconstruction 


It follows from what has been said that the instinctive 
tendencies of man cannot be disregarded by those who are 
seeking the improvement of social conditions upon a scien- 
tific basis. It is safe to assert that no permanent improve- 
ment can be made in human social life which does not take 
natural impulses into account. While such impulses may 
not be adapted to present social conditions, they are, never- 
theless, raw material out of which the acquired habits of 
individuals must be built up. Many psychologists hold that 
all acquired habits are secured by the bending and training 
of native impulses. It is, at any rate, safe to say that plans 
for social reconstruction which ignore the natural impulses 
of man, which attempt to get a higher state of social life 
without building it up out of lower types of reaction, are 
destined to failure. The recognition of the part which in- 
stinctive tendencies play in human social life is therefore 
necessary as a basis for scientific social work and all scientific 


308 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


plans of social reform. Any plan of social reorganization 
which is made without regard to man’s natural impulses will 
certainly meet with as great failure as any plan of individual 
education which is made without regard to inherited tend- 
encies and capacities. But in as much as human impulses 
are indefinitely modifiable through education, when wisely 
dealt with, they present no insuperable barriers to any sane 
plan for the ultimate amelioration of social conditions. In- 
deed, sane plans for the reorganization of human society 
will try to bring social organization more into harmony with 
man’s natural impulses, as we have already seen, rather than 
try needlessly to repress them. There is nothing, therefore, 
in the instinctive tendencies of man which puts any perma- 
nent obstacle in the way of carrying out rational measures 
of social reconstruction; but the recognition of the power of 
natural impulses or instinctive tendencies points to the con- 
clusion that the one safe method of social reorganization is 
-through education, especially through the education of the 
young. When the instinctive element in social behavior is 
thoroughly understood, it can be controlled through education 
and in this sense transcended. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


BERNARD, Instinct, Chaps. IV, V, and XX. 

Auport, Social Psychology, Chap. III. 

BaLpwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations, Chap. V. 

Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, Part II. 

Epie, Principles of the New Economics, Chap. II. 

EpMAN, Human Traits and Their Social Significance, Chaps. 
LRuvieo Vil. 

GinsBerc, The Psychology of Society, Chap. II. 

Groves, Personality and Social Adjustment, Chaps. II, III, X. 

Hosnouse, Social Development, Chaps. VI, VII. 

Hocx1nc, Human Nature and Its Remaking, Chaps. VII-X. 

‘Kettoce, Mind and Heredity, pp. 23-30; 41-50. 

MarsHALL, Instinct and Reason, Chaps. I-V. 

McDoueatt, Introduction to Social Psychology, Chaps. X-XIV. 


INSTINCT AND GROUP LIFE 309 


OcsurN, Social Change, Parts I, V. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chan, UT. 

Rivers, Psychology and Politics. 

SHAND, The Foundations of Character, Book II, Chap. I. 

THORNDIKE, The Original Nature of Man, Chaps. XII-X VII. 

TROTTER, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, pp. 1-65. 

VEBLEN, The Instinct of Workmanship, Chaps. I, II. 

Wattas, Human Nature in Politics, Chap. 1; The Great Society, 
Chap. III. 

WituiaMS, Principles of Psychology, Chaps. I-III. 

Wisster, Man and Culture, Chap. XII. 

WoopwortH, Dynamic Psychology, Chaps. III, VIII. 


OHTA CH Ras 
INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 


THE distinctive character of human social life, as we have 
already seen, is due to the factor of intelligence. While 
impulse and feeling may be the primitive bases of social 
life, these elements can go but a little way in explaining 
the complex social life of man, and especially of civilized 
society. Human society is not controlled chiefly by ready- 
made native reactions, but is largely a product of human 
experience, that is, of what man has learned through the 
ages by means of his intelligence. We must seek to under- 
stand a little more clearly, if possible, therefore, the exact 
role of human intelligence as a factor in human social life.* 
Modern science has doubtless rendered impossible the intel- 
lectualistic views of human society which prevailed in the 
past; but it has rendered equally impossible the anti-intellec- 
tualistic views which have been in fashion during the last 
quarter of a century. It will be well, however, to consider 
first the intellectualistic views of the eighteenth and early 
nineteenth century. 


Intellectualistic Views of Human Society 


According to Auguste Comte, the founder of Sociology, 
“ideas govern the world or throw it into chaos,” and “all 
social mechanism rests upon opinion.” ? In accordance with 
this view, Comte held that the law of the evolution of human 
society is the law of the evolution of man’s intellectual con- 





1Compare what was said in Chapter III on intelligence and 
rationality. 
2 Positive Philosophy, Bk. I, Chap. I. 
310 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 311 


ceptions. He found that these conceptions passed through 
three stages or states, the primitive or theological, the transi- 
tionary or metaphysical, and the positive or scientific. He 
held that there were three general states of society corre- 
sponding to these three stages in the development of intel- 
lectual conceptions. All of man’s intellectual conceptions 
pass from the theological to the scientific. Social behavior 
is undergoing, according to Comte, a similar transformation. 
We are now just entering the positive or scientific stage. 
It will be noted that according to this view everything in 
human society depends upon the accumulation and diffusion 
of knowledge. Just in proportion as men are successful in 
getting exact, scientific knowledge of phenomena, in that pro- 
portion human society will become transformed in a rational 
direction. 

There may be much truth in this conception of Comte; 
but it would no longer be accepted to-day as an adequate 
scientific statement. It is much too simple. It makes the 
character of man’s social life depend quite entirely upon the 
progress of exact knowledge. We now know that instinct, 
feeling, and habit also are factors in all social behavior, and 
that intelligence is only slowly learning to control these other 
factors and can never eliminate them. 


Recent Theories as to the Social Function of Intelli- 
gence 


Various and conflicting views as to the part played by 
intelligence in human social life have been set forth by 
recent thinkers. In the sociological writings of Lester F. 
Ward, for example, we find the view that the intellect, or 
the intelligence, is not a true force in the social life. While 
Ward holds that the distinctive mark of human society is 
achievement or invention in the broadest sense of the term, 
yet he would not give to intelligence the dominant place in 
the social life. He holds that it is not a true “force,” but 


312 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


only a directive agent. He compares its action to that of 
the rudder of a ship. The true social forces, according to 
Ward, are the feelings and the desires. Ward says that 
intelligence is a “factor,” but not a “force.” However, we 
have seen that there is little sense of speaking of “forces” 
in human society except in the sense of active factors. If 
human intelligence is not an active factor in human asso- 
ciation, it would be difficult to point one out. However, 
intelligence is a modifying factor rather than an original 
impelling force. Ward was right in holding that we must 
seek the original impelling forces of human association in 
the feelings and desires, or, the “‘instinct-emotions.” If we 
include in intelligence, however, the physiological processes 
of the cortex associated with it, it is surely entitled to be 
regarded as a phase of behavior and as much of a force as 
feeling and desire. Both intelligence and feeling have been 
developed to mediate and control activity, and both have 
to do with the adaptive processes involved in human behavior. 

Some recent social psychologists would place intelligence 
on the same level as impulse as a factor in human behavior. 
They argue that it is as natural for man to think as to act, 
and that both impulse and thought are equally natural to 
man. They hold, in other words, that intelligence is one of 
the original inherent dispositions of man which works along 
with his other native tendencies, and somehow or other domi- 
nates them, especially if cultivated and organized.* This is 
true both of the individual and of society. 

Neither of the above theories are in accord with the most 
careful conclusions of scientific psychologists. The facts of 
comparative psychology seem to show thought to be neither 
merely a directive agent of feeling, nor an original inherent 
disposition of the organism comparable to instinct. They 
seem to show that intellectual processes have arisen as con- 


3 Ward, Pure Sociology, Chap. XVI, p. 463f. 
4Wallas, The Great Society, Chap. III, p. 36f. 


‘INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 313 


trols over activity in relatively late stages of development, 
and that they come in where there is some conflict or lack 
of adjustment between instinctive or habitual activities, on 
the gne hand, and the environment on the other. In other 
words, intelligence is a sort of a bridge between different 
types of activity or action. Intelligence in the individual is 
an adaptive process,® accordingly, and so has to do with 
changes in behavior. It is a form or phase of behavior, but 
one which arises only when original impulses or ready-made 
habits are insufficient to cope with the situation. Intelli- 
gence is, therefore, neither an original impulse nor a mere 
directive agent of feeling—it is problem-solving ability which 
has been developed by the organism when the ready-made 
reactions of instinct and habit no longer suffice to meet the 
situation. | 

As soon as we view human intelligence as a phase of the 
process of adaptation and as a control over that problem, 
the part that it plays in human society becomes plain. 
Roughly, we may say that, in the social life, impulse has to 
do with its earliest beginnings, habit with order or organi- 
zation, and intelligence with change. Primitively, impulse 
and habit suffice, because primitively the environment was not 
sufficiently complex to give rise to any need for intelligence. 
‘It is true, therefore, that primitively action preceded thought 
in social development; but this does not prevent intelligence 
from later modifying and controlling social action. Intelli- 
gence comes in the development of social life just to the 
extent that there is a need for it. As the adjustments of 
social life have become more complex, there has been greater 
need of thought to control these processes. 

The intelligence, we remember, especially in its human 
manifestations of imagination and reasoning, is the final and 





5 As an adaptive process it is, of course, a capacity rather than a 
ready-made reaction. 


314 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


supreme device produced by organic life for controlling 
adaptive behavior, and so for modifying both behavior and 
the environment. It controls behavior by recognition and 
appreciation of the environment; that is, it penetrates to an 
understanding of the meaning and relations of phenomena, 
by valuing first one reaction, then another. It may do this 
either in actual experience or imaginatively. Through mem- 
ory, imagination, and reasoning, the human mind: gradually 
builds up an environment of its own of images, ideas, and 
values, to which it reacts quite as to the real environment. 
Physiologically, this probably means that the cells of the 
cortex acquire certain habits of reaction which influence, and 
even modify profoundly, the subsequent behavior of the 
organism. More accurately, perhaps, we should say that on 
account of man’s memory, imagination, and reasoning, the 
real environment comes to the human individual loaded with 
certain values and meanings, and that these values and mean- 
ings very largely determine his reaction to a given stimulus. 
Thus, intelligence controls and modifies instinctive and habit- 
ual reactions through substituting in their place reactions 
controlled by intelligent judgment. These latter may in time 
become fixed habits, perhaps as strong as any of the original 
impulses, and, as it were, “second nature” to the individual. 

Manifestly, what the intelligence does for individual be- 
havior it can do for the behavior of a group. As we have 
already seen, through social tradition and its vehicle, the web 
of intercommunication, human groups build up a psycho- 
social environment which in time becomes more important 
for the life of the group than the environment of real objects. 
This psycho-social environment of ideas, values, and stand- 
ards, in circulation in the group, the individuals in the group 
respond to quite as they do to the stimuli in the physical 
environment. The psycho-social environment, or, in other 
words, their group’s tradition and opinion, is quite as real 
to them as the sensations and percepts coming from stimuli 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 318 


in the physical environment and it modifies their activities 
just as directly.® 

Put in other language the “collective representations” and 
the “social mind” of the group is quite as real a control over 
group behavior as individual intelligence is over individual 
conduct.’ We all appreciate this whenever we become con- 
scious of group opinion, group sentiment, group standards, 
group tradition, the mores, or ‘whatever we may call these 
various aspects of mental life in the group. Intelligence, 
therefore, is continually modifying the behavior of human 
groups, and there is good ground for believing that this 
modification can continue indefinitely as long as it stays within 
the limits of group efficiency and survival; for civilization 
has been the gradual substitution of a psycho-social environ- 
ment of ideas, standards, and values for the purely physical 
environment, as a basis for the control of group behavior. 
We shall try to show how this is so. | 

So far as science knows, there is no higher guidance 
afforded to human groups than the guidance of the highest 
available intelligence. A few writers, however, have main- 
tained that society is guided by a suprarational force or agent, 
which some call “intuition” and others have called “the 
emotion of the ideal.” *® When intuition and the emotion of 
the ideal are examined, however, they are found either to be 
made up of instinctive and emotional elements, which are 
less to be trusted than intelligence, or else to be manifesta- 
tions of imagination and reasoning. We know of no better 
guide in human affairs than human intelligence in its highest 
development. This is the guide which science, philosophy, 





6 As illustration, the effect of the British Constitution or of the 
American Constitution on political behavior in Great Britain and 
in the United States respectively might be cited. 

7 This is the fundamental principle of Durkheim’s sociology. See 
his Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, pp. 436, 437. 

8 Kidd, The Science of Power, Chap. V. 


316 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


and rational religion offer to man; so when we study the 
role of intelligence in the evolution and organization of hu- 
man society, we are studying the influence of these three 
agencies just mentioned. 


The Nature of Human Intelligence 


As problem-solving ability, intelligence was not created 
merely by instinct and emotion to serve their ends. Rather 
it is a mutation ® in organic life, a new method of solving the 
problems of adaptation of living creatures over and above 
the method of ready-made reactions. While capacity for it 
is inherited, intelligence itself is largely acquired by each 
individual. Intelligence is, therefore, more or less opposed 
to the ready-made types of reaction. It is intelligence which 
saves us from the tyranny both of instinct and of habit. 
But this statement does not mean that it is necessarily opposed 
to instinctive tendencies or to habits. If intelligence is de- 
veloped to serve the individual organism, it may, of course, 
work with instinctive tendencies and with habits, or it may 
oppose them. That will depend upon the environment and 
upon the degree of its own development. Human intelli- 
gence is still incompletely developed. Intelligence, we have 
seen, is not exclusively an individual matter in its develop- 
ment. Its development largely depends upon the culture of 
the group—or the psycho-social environment. Hence, 
whether it works with certain instinctive tendencies, or with 
certain individual habits, or against them, will depend very 
largely upon the culture of the group or the psycho-social 
environment. 

The culture of the most civilized human groups is, how- 
ever, as yet far from perfected. The culture that we know, 
as we have already seen, is far from completely intelligent 
or rational. It not only shows the bias of the irrational 


®The word “mutation” is not here used in the technical biological 
sense, but in the general sense of “great change.” 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 317 


natural impulses, but also of irrational group habits handed 
down from the past. If we remember these things, we shall 
have no difficulty in understanding that the intellectual beliefs 
of men are rarely completely intelligent; for impulse and 
habit affect belief. Men guide their actions by their beliefs. 
The actions of men we have seen are indefinite mixtures 
of instinct, habit, and intelligence. This being so, we should 
expect that the beliefs of men also are indefinite compounds, 
in which may be found elements of instinct and habit, as well 
as of intelligence. For this reason, human society is only 
gradually becoming intelligent, and rational processes are only 
gradually freeing themselves sufficiently to control efficiently 
group behavior and social life. 


Rationalization 


The process of bolstering up natural impulses and estab- 
lished habits by intelligent reasons is called by some writers 
“rationalization.” This is perhaps an unfortunate use of the 
word. The word should really stand for the making of our 
beliefs and actions completely intelligent or rational, rather 
than for finding more or less rational excuses for them. 
This so-called process of rationalization of beliefs and actions 
is, however, not difficult to understand. It is simply making 
intelligence, especially reasoning, subservient to natural im- 
pulses, feelings, and established habits. There can be no 
doubt that many of the arguments often offered in support 
of existing beliefs, customs, and institutions of present 
society are in the nature of such so-called rationalizations. 
One of the services which psychology and sociology can 
perform for the benefit of mankind, therefore, is to point 
out the tendency of the intelligence to be used in this way. 
It is hardly necessary to say that the truth or value of any- 
thing is not to be established by using the intelligence in 
this manner. Impulses, feelings, and established habits of 
the individual, as well as the customs.and institutions of social 


318 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


groups, may have their justification; but the justification 
should not be sought by making intelligence and reasoning 
subservient to them. It is hardly necessary either to point 
out that intelligence can free itself by its very nature from 
the control of these insidious influences. Intelligence arose 
as a superior method of adaptation. Because it arose as_ 
something superior to impulse and habit, it may act more 
or less in opposition to these. This it does through its 
power of selection, playing one impulse off against an- 
other. 


Rationality 


Sharply to be distinguished from this so-called rationaliza- 
tion is rationality. This is simply intelligence in its highest 
and fullest development. As we have already seen, it is a 
form of controlled imagination. The control comes through 
the testing of hypotheses by experience. In reasoning, we 
perform, as it were, mental experiments. Instead of work- 
ing with objective forces, we work with their symbols. Thefe 
is, therefore, much chance of error creeping in unless we 
can test our conclusions by objective realities, or experience. 
This, of course, we cannot always do; but the reasoning 
process is the one means by which man has advanced his 
knowledge beyond mere observation and penetrated into the 
secrets of the unknown. Invention and discovery manifestly 
proceed through imagination and reasoning. They involve 
the making of hypotheses and the testing of those hypotheses. 
Not only has science been developed this way, but also art, 
institutions, and social organization. In proportion as man 
has been able to develop reason, in this sense of performing 
experiments in his mind and then testing them in experience, 
he has been able to achieve all that is enduring in his culture 
and character. It is for this reason that we regard the work 
of reason and the development of rationality as the distin- 
guishing marks of man. 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 319 


Intelligence and Human Institutions 


If institutions are ways of living together that have been 
reflected upon and sanctioned by the judgment of the com- 
munity, it follows that they are largely products of human 
intelligence. Nevertheless, as we have already seen, all the 
other elements in human nature also affect them. Hence, 
we have seen, human institutions are only partly intelligent 
or rational. Just because they represent group habits which 
have come down from the past, they very often represent 
the work of the intelligence in past situations, perhaps under 
conditions which no longer exist. Ideally, it is evident that 
the human institutions should change as new knowledge is 
discovered, but practically institutions never do this. Since 
they are group habits, they change, as a rule, only when 
practically the entire group becomes convinced that they work 
badly and need to be changed. Hence, the element of ration- 
ality in a given institution at a given time may be very small. 
This is all the more true because an institution may have 
got its start in the past under conditions of comparative 
ignorance. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that insti- 
tutions which have long survived, have had to be based more 
or less upon experience, and therefore have a considerable 
element of intelligence in them. It is very far from the 
truth to say that human institutions are necessarily rational, 
but it is equally far from the truth to think that they do not 
have a considerable element of rationality in them, especially 
when they have been tested by the experience of generations. 
We should always remember the general principle that insti- 
tutions exist in human society to substitute an objective social 
control of conduct more or less rational, for the impulsive, 
subjective, individual control. In other words, human insti- 
tutions have slowly developed toward a more or less rational 
state. 


320 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


The Rationalization of Institutions 


We do not mean by this phrase, the offering of rational 
excuses for the existence of institutions, but rather the 
making of institutions themselves rational. If institutions, 
as we find them in human society, present the mixture of 
impulse, habit, and intelligence, which we have said, then 
it is a problem how far they can be made rational; that is, 
how far the rational element may be made to dominate in 
them. Some social thinkers have held that rational selection 
among human institutions is impossible, because we have no 
way of testing out the rationality or nonrationality of their 
adaptation to human needs, the way we may test physical 
tools. It must be admitted that the rationality of an insti- 
tution cannot be as easily tested as the rationality of a phys-. 
ical tool. It may take generations to test the rationality of 
an institution, while a few trials will usually test the ration- 
ality of a tool. , 

There is no doubt that man first began to rationalize his 
conduct with reference to the manipulation of material 
objects. Primitive man could hardly have been expected to 
have used his rational judgment any further. Therefore, 
primitive man’s beliefs, behavior, and institutions often 
appear highly irrational to us. But when once the rational 
tendency has got started, it tends as a habit of mind, to extend 
over other phases of human behavior than the manipulation 
of material objects and the adaptation to the physical environ- 
ment. We may see this clearly enough in individual experi- 
ence; and the history of the race furnishes enough illustra- 
tions to warrant our extending the generalization to society. 
Thus, astrological notions were once current among the 
peoples of Western civilization. The progress of physical 
science, however, while not directly disproving these astro- 
logical notions, has wiped out such superstitions very largely, 
both from among the educated and from among the masses. 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 321 


The influence of the rationalistic attitude cultivated by science 
has indeed tended to undermine the whole mass of popular 
superstitions which once existed among the peoples now 
included in Western. civilization. | 

It follows that it is not true that social beliefs and social 
behavior can be rationalized only through testing their adapta- 
tion or nonadaptation to material needs.’° The testing of 
social beliefs and social behavior as to rationality is not 
necessarily upon a material plane, though it is always through 
human experience. Religions, for example, may become more 
rational without any change in the material life of the group, 
or without reference to material needs. The idea of God, 
for example, which is finally accepted as true by a group, is 
not necessarily such an idea as will secure the greatest mate- 
rial advantages; but rather the idea which will best unify 
and harmonize the life of the whole group with all the con- 
ditions of existence. It might well be argued that some 
form of nature worship would best suit the material needs 
of human groups; but nature worship has been given up by 
the most cultured human groups, because the idea of God 
as a Father has been found best suited to the social needs 
of human groups. Thus, human history shows that human 
institutions have become gradually rationalized, and that this 
‘rationalization has not been simply the result of rationalizing 
the economic activities of society. 

Man’s experiences with the material world prove to be 
only the starting point for the rationalizing process. Rational 
habits of thought and action once set up in society may 
extend indefinitely until they bring all phases of life under 
their sway. There is good reason to hope, therefore, that 
the influence of: the scientific attitude will ultimately ration- 
alize all phases of human social life. As the rational tradition 





10 This seems to be the position of Keller, Societal Evolution, 
Chap. V. 


322 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


becomes through science established, art, morality, religion, 
government, family life, and even social amusement will 
become more and more permeated by its influence; for it is 
characteristic of the human reason as the highest instrument 
of human adaptation that, while leaving a legitimate place 
for all things, it demands supremacy in order to secure the | 
harmony of all elements in life by assigning to each its proper 
place. From the dawn of human history until now, the 
reason of man has been working for such supremacy, though 
not without many interruptions. This is what the progress 
of science means. If science continues to progress and to 
expand its influence, a relatively rational state of human 
society must some time be reached. 

We are justified in concluding, therefore, that the largest 
generalization which we can make about human history is 
that it is, on the whole, a movement toward the increasing 
supremacy of human intelligence and toward the progressive 
rationalization of human knowledge and human behavior. 
Human intelligence in its higher development is a pioneering 
activity and, in the form of science, is our only sure means 
of exploring the unknown. In its highest form as reason, 
and in its social manifestation as science, it is the ultimate 
and final factor in human social adaptation, the one in which 
we must put our faith for the future, though this conclusion 
does not bar us from giving due consideration to all other 
factors. Human institutions may be counted upon to move, 
therefore, in the direction of intelligent adaptation, though 
not, of course, without interruption. But human institutions 
are a part of human culture. To understand their relation 
to intelligence, we must see how culture and intelligence are 


related. 
Intelligence and Culture 


The factors in the physical environment have never pro- 
duced cultural evolution in any of the animals below man. 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 323 


This fact alone is sufficient to indicate that culture, or civili- 
zation, has been built up, not through the influence of these 
external physical factors, nor through the instincts and emo- 
tions of man, but through man’s superior intelligence or 
ability to learn. The work of the intellectual centers of the 
brain of man in inventing tools, weapons, labor-saving de- 
vices, improvements in communication and transportation, 
and in discovering the laws of phenomena and the properties 
of things, has been the real basis upon which the structure 
of civilization has been reared. In other words, culture or 
civilization comes through the process of learning, and hence 
is an achievement of human intelligence. The accumulation 
of knowledge has enabled man more and more to master 
physical nature and to control his own nature. The secret 
of his mastery of physical nature has been his learning to 
make adjustments to nature, not passively, of course, but 
actively, by modifying physical objects and the operation of 
physical forces. By observing and comparing physical ob- 
jects and processes, man came to understand in part the 
workings of the forces resident in them. Thus, through his 
learning, through his intelligence, he has been able to control 
nature and to build up an artificial physical environment 
which we call material civilization. In a similar way, we 
shall see, he is slowly learning to control and modify his own 
nature through building up an artificial social environment. 


Mental Patterns and Their Diffusion 


But something more than human intelligence has obviously 
been at work in the creation of human culture. Culture is 
a group matter, not an individual adjustment. It necessitates 
the communication to a whole group of the superior action- 
patterns developed by some individual. Now man shares 
with the brutes certain fundamental instinctive adjustments 
and also the capacity to modify conduct intelligently through 
the formation of habits. As an individual he possesses the 


na4° PSYCHOLOGY ‘OF CHUMAN SOCIETY 


power of abstraction or rationality; but in addition he pos- 
sesses superior means of intercommunication with his fellows, 
in the form of articulate speech. It is this last possession 
of man which has been decisive in his creation of culture. 
It became for man the basis for a new type of social evolution. - 
It made it possible to develop a type of social life which is 
almost wholly a matter of acquired habit, of acquired intelli- 
gence, and of acquired values; in other words, a matter of 
culture. 

Superior skill and knowledge acquired by an individual, 
whether as the result of accident or of reflective intelligence, 
might by means of articulate speech be communicated to 
other members of his group. Thus all the individuals of a 
group were able to profit by the experience and intelligence 
of one individual, and in this way the conduct of the entire 
group might be changed through the attainments of one 
fortunate or exceptionally intelligent individual. Nor were 
these newly acquired adjustments by a group lost by the 
death of the generation in which they were learned. Through 
passing along the pattern of the activity or the adjustment 
by means of intercommunication, or tradition, each succeed- 
ing generation could acquire the knowledge and skill, or the 
habits of modified adjustment found advantageous in the 
experience of past generations. : 

Cultural evolution is fundamentally an evolution of ac- 
quired coadaptive habits, but its method is the method of 
social intercommunication. In other words, the vehicle by 
which culture is transmitted in human society is the web of 
intercommunication among human beings which we call lan- 
guage. Thus the ideas, standards, and values, in brief the 
“mental patterns,” which control the formation of coadaptive 
habits circulate in a human group and make possible its cul- 
ture. Nothing like this is found in the groups below man, 
for the reason that the patterns of action in the animals 
below man are shut up, as it were, within their nervous 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 32s 


organization as individuals, or communicated, if at all, only 
by means of the imitation of one animal by another. But 
among human beings, the patterns of behavior have escaped, 
so to speak, from the individual brain, and are transmitted 
from individual to individual, not simply by imitation but by 
the spoken word or language. Thus articulate speech to- 
gether with written language, storing knowledge, custom, 
convention, and tradition, became the main control over the 
behavior of human groups, making their behavior cultural 
rather than merely instinctive. 

It is evident that culture or civilization is made up not 
simply of acquired habits but, on its inner side, of the ideas, 
standards, and values which are patterns of action in the 
minds of individuals. It is evident also that these mental 
patterns in the minds of individuals, when communicated 
through language, are the means by which the members of 
the group control their behavior as a group and develop their 
culture. If we take the making of a stone implement as a 
concrete example, we find that it is invariably made with a 
pattern in mind. If the actual stone implement made con- 
forms to the mental pattern, we may properly call it the 
objectification of an idea. Such patterns for the making 
of stone implements become a part of the group’s tradition, 
‘and are communicated from individual to individual. There, 
of course, goes along with them more or less imitation of 
objective bodily movements. The superior imagination, 
reasoning, or skill of some individual may improve the pat- 
tern which he has received from others and, consequently, 
the tool which is made. Thus a further step in tool making 
and so in culture would come about. 

Now this process of the formation of mental patterns 
for the making of physical tools illustrates the whole process 
of cultural development. Practically the same process is 
used in the making of human institutions, that is, of sanc- 
tioned and systematized ways of living together. Man has 


326 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


learned to perfect his institutions just as he has learned to 
perfect his physical tools. It has been a process of imagi- 
nation: and reasoning, of trial and error. When man has 
made errors in the making of his physical tools, however, 
he has been able to detect these errors readily through experi-_ 
ence; but when he has made errors in his institutions, these 
are not so easily detected. Hence, in the case of institutions, 
errors may persist for thousands of years and possibly for 
thousands of generations. But human history is a process 
of striving on the part of man to perfect patterns for human 
relations as well as for tools. It is these patterns for human 
relations which are, of course, of particular importance for 
social and cultural evolution. 


Invention and Discovery 


The processes which we have just described are those of 
invention and discovery. They are manifestly the processes 
by which material civilization has been built up. They are 
also the processes by which the spiritual side of culture has 
been developed. Invention and discovery, so far as we know, 
do not exist below the human level. If they exist at all in 
animal societies, the general level. of individual mental de- 
velopment and the lack of definite means of communication 
render them of no social effect; hence, animal societies are 
nonprogressive. On the other hand, all human societies show 
invention and discovery from the very beginning. Such 
primitive inventions and discoveries as the control of fire, 
the making of stone tools, the cultivation of plants, and the 
domestication of animals, must be considered as great in 
their social and cultural significance, if not greater than any 
modern inventions and discoveries. Peoples in savagery, 
not less than those in civilization, seem to have undertaken 
very deliberately invention and discovery. In every case 
these processes have depended upon man’s power of abstrac- 
tion, his use of his imagination and reasoning. This is as 


-INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 327 


true even when circumstances have greatly favored inven- 
tions and discoveries, as it is in the case of accidental adjust- 
ments. If men had not had the imagination and rationality 
to perceive the advantage of these happy accidents, they 
would not have preserved and diffused the knowledge of 
them. Hence, we may say that, if necessity stimulates inven- 
tion and discovery, it is nevertheless the mind of man which 
gives birth to them. More strictly, perhaps, we should say 
it is the condition of the culture of the group. The existing 
conditions of knowledge and skill in a group, in other words, 
frequently make some invention or discovery by some indi- 
vidual of the group almost inevitable. This statement, how- 
ever, does not detract, as we shall see, from the importance 
of the superior individual in making the discovery or inven- 
tion. | 

Now the part which invention and discovery play in our 
material culture, or in the making of physical tools, is dupli- 
cated in the development of human institutions. It should 
not be forgotten that new conceptions of human relationship, 
new forms of social organization, new ways of human living, 
have played no less important a part in the development 
of human culture than the invention of tools, weapons, labor- 
saving devices, and means of communication. Invention is 
not confined to the putting together of material forces in new 
ways, nor is discovery confined to understanding the work- 
ings of physical nature. New modes of associating and 
cooperating, or of adjusting the mutual relationships of indi- 
viduals, are invented as well as machines. Human nature 
and human relationships present fields for scientific discovery 
as well as physical nature. In describing the history of cul- 
ture, it is easy to dwell upon man’s conquest over physical 
nature through his technical devices; but it is quite as im- 
portant to know the successive forms of association, of insti- 
tutions, and of standards of social conduct with which man 
has experimented. Civilization has been built up through 


328 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


invention and discovery in this largest sense. Human insti- 
tutions, in this sense, are all inventions, even language itself ; 
that is, they are intelligent perceptions of certain ways in 
which advantages may be realized and disadvantages over- 
come. They are, of course, not arbitrary inventions or mere 
matters of taste. Rather, institutions are like physical tools, 
in that they have to be based, in order to be successful, upon 
certain perceptions or understandings of nature and human 
nature. But, as we have already said, this does not preclude 
the possibility of many errors and imperfections in them. 
These errors and imperfections will have to be eliminated, 
however, by further intelligent perceptions of ways in which 
advantages may be realized and disadvantages overcome. 
The process of building a successful civilization or culture 
is, at bottom, no different from the process of building a 
successful machine. 


The Accumulation and Diffusion of Knowledge 


Civilization has depended upon the accumulation and dif- 
fusion of knowledge, not only of physical nature, but also 
of human nature and of ways by which men may live together 
more harmoniously and satisfactorily. When this knowledge 
is put in the form of certain social standards and values, 
or social patterns, and diffused throughout the group, we 
have seen that it is called the social tradition. At first this 
knowledge lacked exactness, or from our point of view, was 
filled with all sorts of absurd mistakes and superstitions. 
Very gradually, however, means were discovered of testing 
the beliefs which were embodied in the group tradition, and 
so of sifting out its errors, This was largely the work of 
critical judgment and of reasoning brought to bear upon 
experience. Hence the social tradition has been gradually 
refined through the long ages of human culture and freed 
from its errors. But this process is still very far from com- 
plete. Only within the last few centuries has man discovered 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 329 


trustworthy methods of making his knowledge exact and of 
detecting error. These methods of discovering trustworthy 
knowledge we call collectively the scientific method. Very 
slowly at the present ‘time science is extending the field of 
exact knowledge from physical nature to human nature and 
human relations. 

The efficacy of knowledge and standards in guiding social 
activities is often doubted at the present day. But this doubt 
is probably due to the fact that in the past social ideas and 
standards have so often been without an adequate scientific 
basis, that is, they have been built up on some other founda- 
tion than that of scientific facts. It is noteworthy that the 
ideas and standards put forth by the older and better estab- 
lished sciences have not suffered from this skepticism. If 
we wish ideas and standards regarding our social relations 
to be accepted and to have the same power in our social 
life which the ideas and standards presented by the physical 
sciences have in our technological life, it is evident that they 
should be built upon the basis of scientific facts, and not 
upon mere sentiment, zsthetic appreciation, or even moral 
aspiration, as they have been too often in the past. When 
our social ideals and standards shall be constructed upon the 
basis of established, knowledge, they will undoubtedly receive 
general acceptance, first by the educated, and then by the 
masses; and they will become as powerful in their influence 
upon the social behavior of men as the ideas and standards 
of physical science now are upon their technological behavior. 
Thus, the advance of our culture upon its social side depends 
upon the accumulation and diffusion of social knowledge, 
just as its advance upon the technical side has depended 
throughout history upon the accumulation and diffusion of 
knowledge of the facts and laws of physical nature. Such 
accumulation and diffusion of social knowledge, we may 
safely conclude, is not only essential to the establishment 

of right social standards, but to any proper adjustment of 


330 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the relations of individuals, classes, nations, and races in a 
high civilization. 


Intelligence and Social Progress 


Our whole argument, thus far, has been to confirm the © 
time-honored view that man’s superior intelligence has been 
the active agent in his social progress. All the other factors 
in nature and human nature assist, but it is chiefly the 
accumulation, progressive rationalization, and diffusion of 
knowledge which has enabled man to master nature and to 
improve human relationships. However, it has been ques- 
tioned whether this process has led to the improvement of 
human relationships. We are confronted, by those who raise 
this question, with the well-known fact that intellectual people 
and intellectual ages often show antisocial and antimoral 
tendencies. Thus the most intellectual people of antiquity, 
the Greeks, seem to have had little practical social genius, 
as their social life was characterized from early times by 
social disunity and disharmony, and at length by corruption 
and degeneracy. Again in our own time, the discoveries and 
inventions of science have not always led to a better social 
state. Often they have been exploited for the most antisocial 
purposes. There is, therefore, an apparent antagonism be- 
tween social progress, or the improvement of human rela- 
tionships, and the intelligence. This has led some social 
thinkers to advocate the view that the intelligence or reason 
is individualistic and destructive of social bonds, and has 
to be restrained for the good of the social life by some 
“suprarational” factor, such as altruism. Although the state- 
ment may sound absurd, it must be acknowledged, therefore, 
that it is a fair question whether good will and harmony in 
human society is fostered by the development of intelli- 
gence. 

In reply to this question, several things may be said. 
In the first place, it must be remarked that the antagonism 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 331 


between social and intellectual development is more apparent 
than real. Very largely it springs from the fact that the 
intelligence is concerned chiefly with social change, and social 
changes are usually more or less disturbing, temporarily at 
least, to social order. Again, the existence of unsocialized 
intelligence in society may be acknowledged as a fact with- 
out accepting the conclusion that intelligence and reasoning 
in their ultimate development are opposed to the highest 
interests of human society. Like any other part of man’s 
nature, human intelligence is capable of exceedingly narrow 
and unwholesome development. All instruments of adapta- 
tion, even the highest which nature has produced, fail at 
times. The existence of unsocialized thinking no more 1m- 
plies a necessarily unsocial nature of thought processes than 
the existence of unsocialized desire. There is no scientific 
ground upon which psychologists can approve, then, of the 
view that the reason is essentially individualistic and egoistic 
in its activities. On the contrary, when the intelligence and 
the reason are broadly enough developed, they are found to 
be universal relating activities or principles of universal 
interconnection, and as such, tend to bring men into mental 
agreement, and so into harmonious relationships. It is only 
when the intelligence and the reason are made subservient 
to such individualistic factors as feeling and impulse, or to 
material interests, that they become inimical to the highest 
and best development of social life. Rationality is a dis- 
solving force in society only to the extent that it is one- 
sided, exaggerating certain factors in life at the expense of 
other factors. Of the reasoning which takes account of all 
factors we have no need to have fear of the results in social 
progress. 


Social Imagination and Social Progress 


As Comte pointed out, human intelligence will become 
socialized in proportion as it is turned upon the study of 


332. PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


human society itself. It is unsocialized very largely at the 
present time only because it has been used so exclusively 
for the study of physical nature and the promotion of indi- 
vidual success. Through the study of social conditions and 
of the problems of life for all classes and conditions of men, 
an efficient social imagination will be developed in the indi- 
vidual. In this way we may learn to identify ourselves in 
thought with our fellow men, no matter how remote from 
them we may be. Learning to identify ourselves in thought 
with our fellows helps us to understand them, and so helps 
us to develop rational sympathy for them. Thus _ intelli- 
gence becomes an aid to social understanding and to social 
good will. Todd is right in saying that a great part of the 
moral progress of mankind has come through the increase 
of social imagination. The highest sort of social intelli- 
gence, therefore, enables us to identify ourselves not only 
in thought but also in feeling with our fellow men every- 
where. 

Whether intelligence works in a social or antisocial direc- 
tion is, accordingly, altogether a matter of education. Su- 
perior social adjustments may be brought about through the 
development of the socially efficient imagination. If our 
social imagination is broad enough, our capacity for social 
adjustment will be greatly increased, because man is a crea- 
ture who adjusts himself to his environment through the 
mediation of his intelligence; and when his imaginary en- 
vironment is as wide as humanity, it is safe to say that he 
will adjust himself to it quite as he does to his physical 
environment, though of course such an environment will be 
so complex that it will demand high powers of intelligent 
adjustment. If we wish the harmonious social adjustment of 
all humanity, it is evident that we must, for one thing, 
develop in each individual as a basis for such adjustment 
an efficient social imagination and high general intelligence. 
This is not saying that the will and the emotions are not 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 333 


factors for social progress equally important in their way 
with the intelligence; it is only saying that the intelligence, 
particularly in the form of social imagination, must lead the 
way. 


The Intellectual Freedom of the Individual and Social 
Progress 


While absolute freedom of the individual is destructive to 
the group life, certain forms of freedom are essential for 
social progress. Among these is intellectual freedom. The 
mind of the individual must be free to think, if it is to 
form rational opinions or judgments, and to guide conduct 
intelligently. It should, of course, be taught to think critically 
and correctly, that is, scientifically or objectively. But it 
should not be coerced, hampered, or intimidated in its think- 
ing. Within the limits which right reasoning sets for itself, 
everything should be done to encourage free thinking, if 
we wish social progress. This does not mean that people 
will always think helpfully and correctly. On the contrary, 
they will often think incorrectly. But as we have already 
seen, if the free expression of ideas is encouraged, ideas 
can be compared, criticized, and rationally evaluated. Under 
such a process of public discussion wrong ideas will tend 
to be detected and eliminated, and the truth will have the 
best chance to be perceived and to be accepted. Therefore, 
human society needs to be tolerant toward new ideas and 
even toward great variations in belief. It is only through 
tolerance towards variant ideas and opinions that a group 
can expect to get before it the widest possible range of ideas 
for selection and so have the best chance to progress. As 
we implied in a previous chapter, the surest way to promote 
social progress is to keep social institutions plastic by en- 
couraging within reasonable limits the innovating individual, 
by keeping open the channels of intercommunication and of 
public criticism, and by seeing that every new idea and policy 


334 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


has a fair chance to be tested out in the forum of public 
discussion. Accordingly, intellectual freedom for the indi- 
vidual has been found in all human societies to be a prime 
condition for social progress. Social science would there- 
fore agree with the democratic ideal which would emancipate. 
intellectually all classes of men and teach them to “think 
for themselves.” 

There are, however, grave dangers and difficulties in car- 
rying out this policy. In a comparatively ignorant stage of 
popular culture, such as ours undoubtedly is, many people 
who are just beginning to learn to use their minds will think 
most decidedly wrongly. The masses will often follow after 
so-called intellectual leaders who appeal to their impulses, 
emotions, and passions, rather than to their reason; and the 
task of guiding them in accordance with reason may at 
times seem hopeless. 

Evidently if we are to allow people the liberty to think 
for themselves we must adequately educate them. The rem- 
edy for the evils of intelligence is more intelligence; because 
intelligence is evil only when it is partial. In part, this better 
education will be accomplished by encouraging people to 
think and to express their ideas. If we insist upon people 
thinking for themselves and upon more thinking and better 
thinking, there will come a time when the appeal to reason 
will be stronger than any appeal to passion of to prejudice; 
and people will make wiser selections of their intellectual 
leaders. If the rational habit of mind, or respect for intel- 
ligence gets established in any social group, the intellectual 
élite will then be able to lead the masses of men to social 
achievements which are now undreamed of. The problem 
of intellectual leadership is evidently fundamental in the 
whole problem of the relations of the intelligence and social 
progress. 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 335 


Intellectual Leadership and Social Progress 


We pointed out in Chapter VII that human groups guide 
themselves in their thinking and acting according to the pat- 
tern or example furnished by some leader. Man, because 
he is social, is essentially an imitative animal. That is, he 
follows leaders. Group behavior is almost always a matter 
of following a leader. In other words, the method used 
by human groups to adjust themselves to new situations, 
especially when these situations are complex and difficult, 
is to copy the action-patterns, proposed or illustrated, by the 
relatively few individuals who are the leaders of the group. 
Intellectual leadership is necessary for successfully effecting 
any complex change in human groups. Hence it follows 
that nothing great in the way of social progress is ever 
achieved by human beings without leadership. We have 
seen also that it is only exceptional individual minds which - 
are capable of producing ideas that are socially valuable. 
Hence all the higher work of civilization is a result of pioneer- 
ing minds who blaze the trail for social achievement. But 
these pioneering minds are not wholly the spontaneous prod- 
ucts of nature. They are, at least in part, the products of 
the psycho-social environment. 

Genius undoubtedly has its biological side in organic varia- 
tion; but we should also not overlook the training which 
the exceptional individual mind usually gets from the social 
environment. Men of ability and of genius take from their 
environment perhaps even more than they give back to it. 
A “great” man is usually a focusing point of many, and 
sometimes of nearly all, of the tendencies of his age and 
nation. In other words, it is the stimulation of the social 
environment which develops his talents or genius. When we 
look over a list of great men we usually find that their great- 
ness consists in being able to sum up in their own personalities 
the striking tendencies of their time. The fruitful ideas of 


336 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


genius are therefore quite as much social products as products 
of individual mental superiority. Indeed, if this were not 
so, they would not have been taken up by the group in which 
they were developed, and we would have heard nothing 
concerning them. 

These familiar sociological facts, while they make impos-— 
sible the acceptance of the great-man theory of human his- 
tory, do not detract at all from the importance of intel- 
lectual leadership in civilized societies. It is the man of 
intellectual ability who first produces the new ideas, standards 
and values by which complex social adjustments are made. 
These ideas and standards are then copied imitatively by 
the mass of the group. The change is evidently effected 
through the mediation of the intellectual leadership of a few 
and the intellectual appreciation of the value of the new 
ideas or standards by the many. 

Not all the new ideas of individuals, however, are taken 
up and generalized by the group in which they occur. They 
will be taken up only if there is felt a need for them, an 
appreciation of their value. Just how much influence the 
ideas of an intellectual leader will have in a group will 
depend, therefore, upon its culture and social situation. 
Hence, only the ideas and inventions of a leader will be 
generalized for which the group is ready. The leader and 
his new ideas or inventions are quite evidently selected by 
the group. This means that if the ideas and ideals of an 
intellectual leader are to be fruitful socially, such a leader 
must be in close touch with the life of his group. In other 
words, his ideas to be accepted must be found to be adapted 
to the group life. Hence, it happens that the inventions of a 
particular age will be only the inventions for which that 
age or stage of social evolution is ready. The great man 
who manages to perform a great work for his time is 
always one who is socially selected. It is, therefore, the 
selection of the group which finally determines who shall 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 337 


be the accepted intellectual leader or, in other words, who 
shall be judged as a genius or a great man. In some cases, 
however, the social selection comes only after the death of 
the individual. In such cases there is still social selection, 
only of a spiritual rather than of a living leader. It need 
hardly be pointed out that this is the reason why the memory 
of the lives and achievements of men of ability is so highly 
prized among the more highly civilized peoples. 

But the ideas which are the inventions of exceptional minds 
and which are accepted or “selected” by social groups are 
of all degrees of social value. We must recognize that 
intellectual ability has the power to mislead human beings 
as well as to. lead them aright. This is not because the 
ideas of the intellectual leader are ever literally imposed 
upon his group; but when the influence of superstition, igno- 
rance, and excitement, or the lack of social freedom is strong 
in a group, wrong intellectual leaders may easily be selected 
and wrong ideas or standards accepted. Even highly civilized 
society sometimes accepts ideas so reversionary as to lead 
straight back toward barbarism. The social value of the 
ideas of intellectual leaders, accordingly, can only be deter- 
mined finally through testing them in actual social experi- 
ence. But undoubtedly very much could be done to secure 
better intellectual leadership in present society, and so better 
social ideals and standards. The diffusion of the scientific 
spirit among the masses would help much. When all social 
ideas and ideals are adequately tested by comparison with 
historical facts and checked up through all other sources 
of scientific social knowledge, society may be saved much 
bad leadership and harmful influence from erroneous ideas 
and standards. This is evidently a matter of supreme im- 
portance in our present complex civilization; for the ac- 
cepted ideas and ideals of a social group, its mental patterns, 
are its most priceless possession. For upon these the whole 
structure of its culture and social order must rest, while 


338 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the socially fruitful new ideas and ideals which are the in- 
ventions of genius are the priceless instruments for raising 
the social life of human groups to still higher levels. 


Collective Achievement 


If a social group desires progress and if it appreciates 
the intellectual elements which enter into progress, quite 
evidently it should not depend upon happy accidents ‘of 
individual achievement. It should enter upon a rationally 
planned program of achievement by the group as a whole. 
This the late Professor Lester F. Ward called “collective 
telesis.””** To enter upon such a program of rationally 
planned progress and collective achievement, a group would 
evidently need to do at least three things along intellectual 
lines: first, to find and train efficient intellectual leaders; 
second, to organize and make available all of the knowledge 
and intelligence of the group; and third, to diffuse the sci- 
entific attitude and general social intelligence throughout 
the group, to assure its response to intelligent leadership. 

As regards the first of these.conditions of collective achieve- 
ment, we have already seen that Professor Ward and others 
have demonstrated that there is no lack of leadership ma- 
terial in human societies; that the problem is rather the 
finding and proper training of such leaders.4? This should 
be really the work of the higher institutions of learning. To 
some extent, they have entered upon such a program, but 
not in any adequate way, especially along the lines of the 
spiritual needs of our civilization. 

As regards the organization of knowledge and _ intelli- 
gence, the most highly civilized nations are evidently pro- 
ceeding in this direction, though haltingly; for this is the 
meaning of the fostering of science along various lines and 
the organization and systematic development of higher edu- 


11 Compare Ward, Pure Sociology, Chap. XX. 
12 Ward, Applied Sociology, Part II. 


INTELLIGENCE AND GROUP LIFE 330 


cation, But much still remains to be done. All available 
knowledge should be so organized as to be socially available 
not only for technological achievements but also for legis- 
lation and the general guidance of social policies. Such 
organization of knowledge and intelligence would stimulate 
invention both in the ideal and material realm. With wise 
organization and control of the intellectual side of life, human 
society might furnish itself with a never-ending supply of 
socially valuable inventions which would become a basis 
for continual social progress. 

But in a democratic society this would avail little unless 
the masses were taught to appreciate intellectual achieve- 
ment, the scientific attitude, and the value of intelligent 
guidance in all group matters. As long as the nonscientific 
attitude prevails among the masses of our people, along 
with much social ignorance, we must expect that social 
achievements will go slowly and that social progress will be 
greatly hampered. In one sense, therefore, the first two 
conditions of collective achievement depend upon the dif- 
fusion of the scientific attitude and social intelligence among 
the mass of the people. This quite evidently brings us to the 
general problem of social education which we will consider 
in a later chapter. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


HosuouseE, The Rational Good, Chap. V. 

Bocarpus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Chaps. XXXII- 
XXXIV. 

Coo.tey, Social Process, Part VII. 

Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, Part III. 

EpMAN, Human Traits and Their Social Significance, Chaps. 
TTT TV. 

Gau_T, Social Psychology, Chap. IX. 

Gippincs, Studies in the Theory of Human Gocien! Chap. X. 

GinsBERG, The Psychology of Soctety, Chap. III. 

Hosuouse, Mind in Evolution, Revised Edition, Chaps. XIV, 
XV. 


340 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


KEtuer, Societal Evolution, Chap. IV. 

Lrvy-BruuHL, Primitive Mentality. 

Sims, Society and Its Surplus, Chap. VIII. 

Wattas, The Great Society, Chaps. X, XI. 

Warp, Pure Sociology, Chaps. XVI-XIX; Outlines of So- 
ciology, Chap. XII. 

WissLer, Man and Culture, Chap. XVI. 


CHAPTER XI 
IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 


In addition to communication through language,’ there are 
three other forms of social interaction of such great im- 
portance in the social life that they demand further and 
more specific consideration. These are doing as others do, 
thinking as others think, and feeling as others feel. These 
have been named imitation, suggestion, and sympathy. But 
these names are not as exact as we could wish. Evidently 
they are three closely related processes, and in studying 
them we shall see the importance in human groups of sim- 
ilarity of action, similarity of thinking, and similarity of 
feeling? They are so important for the social life that 
whole social psychologies have been built upon their study, 
without much regard for other elements in either individual 
or group behavior. We shall begin with the study of imi- 
tation, relating it more or less to suggestion, but reserving 
until the next chapter our study of sympathy. 


The Nature of Imitation 


The word “imitation” is used to cover a variety of psycho- 
social processes, In a broad sense, all of the processes which 





1 Language has other elements in it, according to linguistic psy- 
chologists, than suggestion and imitation, though some suggestion- 
imitation theorists have attempted to reduce language and all com- 
munication to a suggestion-imitation process. See note, p. 220. 

2Compare what has been said in other chapters, especially V, 
VI, VII. Recent psychological criticism has shown that what 
sociologists and social psychologists have in the past called “imitation” 
is made up of so many distinct but unrelated processes that if it were 
not for traditional terminology we would probably not even retain 
the term. 

341 


342 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


we have just mentioned are imitative. It will aid clearness, 
therefore, if we speak of imitative action, instead of imi- 
tation, for the motor side of the processes just mentioned, 
We shall discover that imitative action itself presents many 
varieties. We shall find that it may be on the level of 
instinct, of habit, or of reflective intelligence. Many dif- 
ferent kinds of imitation or of imitative actions have been 
pointed out by sociologists and social psychologists. But we 
find the term ordinarily used for three different sorts of 
imitative action in human beings. 

1. In the first place, there is imitation in the sense of 
the natural impulse to do what we see others doing. The 
example of one releases some reflex action in another as is 
often seen among human beings, for instance, in yawning. 
This tendency extends far down in the world of animal life. 
Even among the birds we find instinctive tendencies set off 
by the sight of the behavior in another individual of the 
same species or group, although we do not find in the case 
of the lower animals the learning of new types of behavior 
by imitative action, as we do. among human beings. ‘The 
brutes do not learn to any extent by imitation, but imitative 
action frequently occurs among them as a method of in- 
stinctive response. The seeing of the action of another 
individual of the same species, in other words, may excite 
similar behavior from a similar instinctive basis. In such 
cases it is usually said that the instinctive response is excited 
sympathetically. Ina similar way an habitual response may 
also be excited sympathetically. The response is, of course, 
a more or less unconscious process, and we have no right 
to think that there is conscious copying of the behavior 
of one animal by another. For this reason, this type of 
imitation is sometimes called “unconscious” or “involuntary.” 
In the very lowest animals, we may note, this sympathetic 
or social method of exciting instinctive responses is un- 
known. In these lower forms instinctive reactions can be 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 343 


excited only through appropriate physical stimuli in the en- 
vironment, and not socially or sympathetically. But among 
many of the brutes near to man, such as dogs and apes, 
we often find this sympathetic excitation of instinctive and 
habitual tendencies. Such a method of exciting instinctive 
reactions, of course, implies a previous development of group 
life. It occurs only among social animals. 

It seems certain that many of the imitative actions of 
human beings are of this purely impulsive or unconscious 
sort. We have a natural impulse to do some acts which 
we see others doing, even apart from our habits and in- 
telligence. This is most clearly seen in the case of children 
in such acts as crying and shouting; but there can scarcely 
be any doubt that example in human society is very power- 
ful in awakening practically all the animal impulses of human 
beings. Neither individual nor group behavior can be under- 
stood unless we bear this in mind. This is one reason 
why examples of behavior on the animal level are so de- 
moralizing in human groups. Particularly would it be diffi- 
cult to explain the behavior of crowds unless human beings 
in crowds, like herds of animals, may have their instinctive 
tendencies excited sympathetically. 

_ 2, In the second place, we often call “imitation” those ac- 
tions which are manifestations of the desire for conformity to 
the behavior of one’s group. The desire to conform one’s 
own conduct to the conduct of one’s group is very strong 
in all human beings. It is perhaps partly a natural impulse, 
springing from the love of the approbation of others, but 
is even more largely a matter of habit and of intelligence. 
‘In many people it frequently becomes a passion to do as 
others do. It is more highly conscious than the first type 
of imitative action already described, but is still essentially 
nonrational. Indeed, it is distinguished from the third type 
by the fact that it is largely without consciousness of the 
purpose of the imitative action, It is dominated by emotional 


344 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


and impulsive elements, the mere desire to go with one’s 
group. If there is a general neural tendency to imitate and, 
in addition, a gregarious or herd instinct in man, as Pro- 
fessor McDougall has claimed, their combination would ex- 
plain the great strength of the desire to conform one’s 
conduct to that of one’s group. Trotter would explain this 
and, indeed, all imitative action, through the strength of 
the herd instinct alone in man. But the desire to conform 
can be explained equally well through habit and group pres- 
sure. It is safe to conclude that the copying of others for 
the sake of conformity, or being at one with one’s group, 
is a matter of natural impulse and of habit, since very few 
people can give intelligent reasons for doing so. When 
reasons are given they are usually found to be not true 
reasons, but rationalizations, in the sense in which that word 
was explained in the preceding chapter. Yet this type of 
imitative action is one of the most important features of 
human social life. It is illustrated by both custom and 
conventionality imitation, but is probably best seen in fash- 
ions in dress and in manners. This sort of imitative action 
is imitation at its purest. 

3. A third sort of imitation is rational imitation, or the 
copying of the action of another, not merely because it 
satisfies some impulse, nor yet for the sake of social con- 
formity, but because it is in accord with some rational pur- 
pose to do so. We imitate rationally when we exercise 
rational judgment in our choices, even though we follow 
the example of some one else. When we adopt some im- 
proved tool or method to accomplish something, the imitative 
action is rational. Such rational imitation, doubtless, grows 
in part out of the preceding sorts of imitation, but it is 
quite different from them on account of its large rational 
and purposive element. It is no longer mere imitation, but 
a rational response which is imitative in form, just as the 
first kind of imitation was an instinctive response imitative 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 345 


in its form, Rational imitation is closely connected with the 
higher development of the social life of man. It is a method 
of learning, and hence has been a chief factor in the de. 
velopment of culture. 


The Connections of Imitation with Other Mental Processes 


Imitation is but one form of interstimulation and response, 
or social interaction. It is an outcome of both instinct 
and habit, and is mediatory of both of these fundamental 
aspects of mental and social life. Without the imitative 
tendency to guide the expressions of instinct, habit, and 
intelligence in human groups, anything like harmonious so- 
cial life would be impossible. For imitation in the broad 
sense is nothing but that type of mental interstimulation 
and response which results in uniformity of behavior in 
the interacting individuals. It is, therefore, closely con- 
nected with other processes which tend toward mental uni- 
formity. It is especially closely related to suggestion, which 
is a process tending toward uniformity in thinking in a 
group, and to sympathy, which tends toward uniformity of 
feeling in a group. Indeed, we might define these various 
terms, respectively, as socially induced action, cognition, and 
feeling. Imitation, suggestion, and sympathy are thus all 
closely related processes, and may perhaps be regarded as 
the motor, affective, and cognitive aspects of one psycho- 
social process, which is sometimes called “social contagion,” 
and which for want of a better name we may call “mental 
induction.” This does not mean that wherever we find 
one of these processes, we must necessarily find the others 
also; but it does mean that these three processes of imitation, 
suggestion, and sympathy are continually associated in actual 
social life. 

An illustration may perhaps serve to make this point clear. 
A crowd of men in a panic may show all three of the 
‘processes we are discussing working together. Some would 


346 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


say that the panic is the result of one individual imitating 
another; others would say that it was the outcome of sym- 
pathy, the emotion of fear being sympathetically shared by 
all; still others might say that the panic was the result of 
mass suggestion. All three answers are manifestly partly 
right, for in a panic there is always the suggestion of danger, 
the sympathetic communication of the emotion of fear, and 
the imitation of the action of one or more leading individuals 
by the crowd as a whole. Here, then, we see the three 
processes working together as three sides of what is we 
cally one process. 

Imitative action is also always closely related with certain 
other mental processes. This is obvious from the fact that 
individuals are more apt to imitate other individuals of 
their kind or of their group than those outside of their kind 
or their group. The consciousness of kind, of race, of 
nationality, of class, and of social set usually exercises con- 
trol over imitative actions. It is very seldom that we find 
imitation wholly outside of one’s group, and almost never 
the imitation of one species by another species. Moreover, 
imitation in human society is very largely the imitation of 
leaders or of authorities. It is usually said to be a law of 
imitative action that imitation proceeds from superiors to 
inferiors. It would be difficult to explain this fact of 
the social inferior so uniformly imitating the social superior, 
if we did not remember that man is a social animal and 
as such follows leaders, not merely when there is a rational 
ground for doing so, but even when there is no rational 
ground. Again, in educated and self-controlled persons, 
imitative tendencies are guided and held in check by the 
reason. Thus we see that imitative tendencies are constantly 
modified and controlled by a great number of other elements, 
some in human nature and some in the circumstances of 
environment. 

Accordingly, the student should at all times be careful to 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 347 


bear in mind that there is no general instinct of imitation; 
that imitative action is a method of expressing many in- 
stinctive tendencies; that it is also a method of expressing 
habits and even the very highest form of rational choice. 
Imitation is simply a name for one of the types of interaction 
between individuals, which may be either on an imstinctive, 
habiiual, or rational plane. 


The Nature of Suggestion 


By suggestion we mean the process of communicating an 
idea from one individual to another, when the idea is ac- 
cepted more or less uncritically or without rational ground, 
The state of mind which is necessary in order that suggestion 
may work is called “suggestibility.” It is the tendency to 
believe without proof and to act without sufficient reason, 
It is the state in which an idea or image, particularly one 
that is associated with some original tendency or strong 
habit, becomes more or less isolated in the mind from 
inhibiting and controlling processes; and hence it tends to 
work itself out automatically. Hypnotism is an extreme 
example of the working of suggestion and suggestibility. The 
normal individual in everyday social life, however, is more 
or less suggestible. The critical faculties are rarely fully 
awake. Most of the thinking of the average individual is 
suggested thinking, just as most of his action is imitative 
action. Suggestibility is a normal and necessary accompani- 
ment of group life* The social animal must be ready at 
all times to respond to the ideas communicated to him by the 
fellow members of his group. This is well illustrated by 
what is called “primitive credulity” among savages, but it 
is not less to be found in civilized groups. Even in the 





8 This was exaggerated by Boris Sidis in his Psychology of 
Suggestion into the theory that man is “social because he is sug- 
gestible.” The reverse, that he is “suggestible because he is social,” 

is, of course, more nearly correct. 


348 PSYCHOLOGY OP VEPUMAN: SOCTEY . 


most highly civilized groups individuals are found to respond 
more or less uncritically to their fellows, that is to say, 
credulously. | | 

We must admit that no high development of group life 
is possible without suggestion and suggestibility; but we 
can scarcely agree with those who claim that man is 
“social because he is suggestible.”’ Suggestibility represents 
the receptive, plastic side of consciousness with reference 
to the rest of the group. It is evidently the cognitive side 
of the same social process which manifests itself actively 
as imitation. Suggestion is the stimulus, we may say, and 
imitation the response. It is a form of stimulus and response 
which makes for unity of thinking in the group. It thus 
tends also toward uniformity in behavior. While, like imi- 
tation, suggestibility has its pathological manifestations, it 
must be regarded as a normal and necessary quality in social 
behavior. 

The psychology of suggestion is essentially the same as 
that of imitation. Suggestibility manifests itself particularly 
in connection with the great subconscious tendencies of orig- 
inal or acquired human nature. It particularly manifests 
itself in connection with the instinct-emotions and with deeply 
established habits. People are more suggestible along the 
lines of natural impulses and of emotions than they usually 
are along the lines of habit. Therefore, emotionality is one 
of the conditions favorable to suggestibility. Ignorance is 
another condition favorable to suggestibility, because the 
ignorant mind is rarely critical, We find these conditions 
favoring heightened suggestibility particularly in crowds and 
among ignorant masses of people. Because the psychology 
of suggestion is so nearly the same as that of imitation it 
will not usually be necessary for us to discuss suggestion 
as a separate process. 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 349 


The Imitation Theory of Society 


In 1869 Walter Bagehot published a pioneer work along 
sociological lines entitled Physics and Politics. In this book 
Bagehot set forth the theory that “the main force which 
molds and fashions men in society as we now see it is 
unconscious imitation.” Since then, many sociologists and 
social psychologists have put forth suggestion-imitation the- 
ories of social life. Perhaps the chief representative of this 
trend in sociology was Gabriel Tarde, an eminent French 
sociologist, who in 1890, in his Laws of Imitation,’ put forth 
the theory that human social life must be interpreted funda- 
mentally in terms of the suggestion-imitation process. Tarde 
believed that the influence of one mind upon another was 
entirely through this process. He claimed that imitation is 
“the elementary social phenomenon,” “the fundamental social 
fact.”> He went so far as to say that imitation is the 
criterion of the social, and that “society is imitation.” ® So- 
cial unity, according to Tarde, is wholly the result of the 
suggestion-imitation process. It is, he said, “the effect of 
that suggestion-imitation process, which, starting from one 
primitive creature, possessed of a single idea or act, passed 
this copy on to one of its neighbors, then to another, and so 
on.’* While Tarde left a place in his social psychology 
for conflict and for invention, yet he found the essential 
elements even of these phenomena in the suggestion-imitation 
process. He believed that the laws of imitation are to 
sociology “what the laws of habit and heredity are to biology, 
the laws of gravitation to astronomy, and the laws of vibra- 
tion to physics.” § 





4 Translated into English by Mrs. Parsons. 

5 Tarde, Social Laws, p. 56. 

6 Tarde, The Laws of Imitation (Eng. trans.), p. 74. 
7 Tarde, Social Laws, pp. 38, 39. 

8 [bid., p. 61. 


330 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Professor J. M. Baldwin® and Professor E. A. Ross ?° 
developed and elaborated this theory among American so- 
ciologists. They guarded themselves against Tarde’s ex- 
treme formulas, and maintained only that imitation was the 
method of social organization and development. The in- 
dividual develops individually and morally, Baldwin said, 
by imitating the mental attitudes and behavior of those about 
him, while society changes through the imitation of the 
thought or action of some individual who is accepted as a 
leader. Thus the new thoughts and actions originate with 
the individual; but these are generalized or diffused through 
the group by the process of imitation. 

It is not necessary to criticize in detail this imitation the- 
ory of human society. As a theory it unduly simplifies the 
social life by slighting the influence of factors other than 
suggestion and imitation. Important as suggestion and imi- 
tation are in social life, there is no evidence to show that 
they are more important than many other factors. Habits 
are not wholly acquired by imitation, and it is not true 
that the learning process is fundamentally an imitative 
process. It is a process of habit formation, but many psy- 
chologists would minimize the importance of imitation in this 
process of learning.12 We cannot interpret the social life 
of man in terms of one of its very general aspects or 
precesses, apart from all the rest of the processes of group 
life. If we should do so, we would get a very abstract and 
one-sided view of the social life—one separated from the 
great forces of organic and cultural evolution, which have 
made even the imitative process itself; for man is social, 


® Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Develop- 
ment, 

10 Ross, Social Psychology. 

11 Baldwin, op. cit., Chaps. II, III, XII, XIII. 

12See Thorndike, Educational Psychology, Vol. I, and Pyle, The 
Psychology of Learning. 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 351 


not because he is imitative, but because his whole nature 
has been evolved under conditions of group life. In other 
words, he is imitative because he is social, rather than social 
because he is imitative. 


Imitation as a Factor in Human Society 


Imitative action is not the basis or foundation of social life. 
The association of animals shows us clearly enough that 
something more fundamental than imitation is involved in 
the origin of group life. Collective life, social relationships, 
coordinated activities, exist far below the level of imitation. 
Imitation, accordingly, cannot be even the exclusive method 
of carrying on group life; but it is an instrument which 
social life has developed to perfect its codrdinations, its 
unity. Probably Professor Baldwin was right when he in- 
sisted that imitation is the chief means of propagating 
acquired uniformities of action in human groups. All groups 
that have developed to the point in which acquired uniformity 
of behavior becomes important develop imitative action as a 
means of group adjustment. Imitation is thus one of the 
basic things in the development of those higher types of 
social or group life which depend upon acquired uniformity. 
This is so because it is the type of social interaction which 
results in uniformity of behavior. It is, therefore, the 
great and indispensable means of bringing about unity in the 
group when uniform action above the purely instinctive level 
is necessary or desirable. Since imitation makes for social 
uniformity, it makes for social unity, except in those very 
numerous cases where unity rests upon difference rather 
than upon similarity. 

It is manifest that imitation must come in to build up 
most social usages and social adjustments. It is, therefore, 
a prime means of bringing about the social assimilation of 
unlike elements in a group. If, for example, we wish to 
assimilate the foreign born in our national life, we must 


352 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


get them to imitate the models or patterns of behavior of 
our national group. Assimilation, however, is more than a 
matter of mere imitative action. Imitative action simply 
facilitates the absorption of the standards and attitudes of 
the group by the newcomer. 

We cannot agree, however, that it is imitative action alone 
which unifies the group. As we have already seen, imitation 
is only one factor in group unity. Unity depends not so 
much upon uniformity as upon coordination or coadaptation, 
and imitation is only one of the forms of social coordination 
possible between individuals. Unltkeness of activity favors 
the division of labor in society and, when not carried too far, 
favors social interdependence, or unity in a group, even more 
than uniformity of activity. Hence in the more highly 
civilized human groups imitative action is less necessary to 
secure unity than in the lower civilized. It is nonrational 
imitation which especially favors uniformity in behavior in 
a social group; but nonrational imitation is often unfavorable 
to the higher developments of civilization. In high civiliza- 
tion we need to teach even the masses to think critically 
and to show independent judgment. The cultivation of 
rationality in human society means something far more, 
therefore, than the promotion of imitative action. 


Imitation and the Diffusion of Social Patterns 


Whenever and wherever a model or pattern is furnished, 
the imitative process makes easy the development of the 
group in that direction. Now as human culture depends 
upon the accumulation and diffusion of action-patterns in 
human groups, it is evident that the function of imitation 
in helping to bring about their diffusion is very important 
indeed. Through the imitative process habits useful to a 
group may be diffused throughout its members in a short 
space of time. A new tool, idea, or standard originated by 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 353 


one member of the group has only to be copied by the other 
members in order that the whole group may participate 
in the benefits of the new invention. Thus the imitative 
process is a short cut by which the individual profits not 
only from the inventions of the present, but also from the 
cultural acquirements of the past. In this way, through 
what is technically known as conventionality imitation and 
custom imitation, the whole pattern of the cultural group 
is carried from generation to generation and even diffused 
to other groups. Undoubtedly, through this process civili- 
zation has not only been preserved but diffused. Some 
anthropologists think that the diffusion of cultural patterns 
from some primitive center which originated then has been 
the essential process of cultural development for mankind as 
a whole. These anthropologists would agree substantially 
with Tarde’s imitation theory of society. 

But this theory leaves out of account the part which 
originality and invention play in the development of culture. 
Tarde, as we have seen, would explain originality and in- 
vention through the imitative process, but psychologists gen- 
erally would not agree with him. Moreover, the imitative 
process is more useful in the lower and middle phases of 
culture than in higher civilization. A people may become 
civilized, for example, by borrowing their culture from an- 
other people, that is, by imitating a civilized group, but such 
borrowing rarely develops a social life which shows the 
strength and cohesion which it would show if there were 
more originality and self-development. We shall return 
to this question again, and here it is only necessary to point 
out that both unconscious and rational imitation play a great 
part in diffusing social patterns, but that the imitative process 
has its limitations as a developer of culture, just as we 
have seen that it has its limitations as a promoter of group 
unity. 


354 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Fashion 


Both the power and the limitations of imitation in human 
society may be well illustrated by considering fashion; for, 
as we have already said, fashion is imitation at its purest.** 
Fashion is the copying of the behavior of members of one’s 
group, not for the sake of utility, but for the sake of con- 
formity. Fashion may have in it an element of utility, but 
its real motive is the advantage of social conformity. It 
is perhaps best seen in dress, but it affects all the methods, 
or styles, of living and thinking. There are fashions, for 
example, in behavior, in manners, in morals, in houses, in 
furniture, and even in ideas. Because all of these things 
press upon the individual with the weight of the mass-sug- 
gestion of the group, it is very difficult to avoid conforming 
to them. And yet they may have very little genuine utility, 
value, or truth in themselves. 

It is a mistake to set fashion always in opposition to tra- 
dition and custom. In the past in small, isolated commu- 
nities the only fashions which obtained were usually the cus- 
toms of generations. They were none the less fashions, 
however, because they were clearly imitations on the basis of 
social conformity. In the larger communities of the present, 
more or less in contact with the whole civilized world, 
fashion becomes chiefly an imitation of contemporaries rather 
than of the past. In such communities, owing in part to 
their emancipation from the domination of tradition and 
custom, owing also to the accumulation of wealth and so to 
possible competition in social self-exhibition, fashions change 
often with great rapidity. As soon as a fashion or style 
has become general in the mass of a group, those who main- 
tain their social prestige by “conspicuous consumption,” or 
by other means of attracting attention to themselves, feel 





13 See Ross, Social Psychology, Chap. VI. 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 355 


that they must change their style of dress, of behavior, or 
even of general living, in order that they may assert their 
superiority to the mass. Here evidently the egoistic self- 
assertion of a few comes in to modify the tendency toward 
social conformity and to set new standards. The few, to 
whom the masses have come to look for standards along 
some given line, change the fashion in order to assert their 
superiority or perhaps to gain economic advantage. The 
masses of the group, with their habitual tendencies to follow 
their leaders, imitate the few who assert their superiority. 
Again the few change the style, and again the fashions in 
the group change. While this results in great variety in 
the social life, it also results in much economic and vital 
waste and not infrequently in social confusion. How ra- 
tionally to control fashion imitation along all lines has ac- 
cordingly become one of the great problems of modern 
civilization. The mere fact that such a problem exists shows 
the power and the relative independence of the imitation 
process in human society. Imitativeness is a force to be 
reckoned with in human affairs. 

It must be admitted that fashion imitation has a good as 
well as a bad side. New ideas of great social value, superior 
social standards, and even superior modes of general living 
may, to a certain extent, be spread by fashion imitation; 
that is, they may become diffused among the masses because 
they are imitated as fashions from social superiors rather 
than because their utility or value is rationally perceived. As 
a matter of historic fact, superior religions, moral codes, 
artistic productions, and even mechanical inventions have 
often been thus diffused through the power of fashion imi- 
tation. As a rule, such things have to become “the fashion” 
before they can become embodied as a part of the social 
tradition. Fashion imitation here shades, of course, imper- 
ceptibly into the broader “conventionality imitation,” that is, 
any imitation of contemporaries, of which fashion imitation 


356 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


is manifestly a part, and which we have already discussed 
as a factor in social change. 


The Behavior of Crowds 


Another good illustration of the influence of suggestion- 
imitation in social life is seen in the behavior of crowds. 
Crowds are of many sorts, ranging from the mob to the 
ordinary audience, and a whole literature has been written 
regarding their psychology. We have space here only to 
make a few points to illustrate our theory. 

In the social and psychological sense, we have a crowd 
only when we have some unity in the activity of a large 
group of individuals gathered together in one place. This 
unity of activity usually comes through some stimulation 
which excites emotionally the whole mass of individuals in 
the group. This stimulation at the same time serves to fix 
the attention of all the members of the group upon one 
object or in a given direction. Under such conditions of 
emotional stimulation a group of human beings usually be- 
comes highly suggestible. Moreover, the fixation of atten- 
tion and the emotional excitement which characterize the 
psychological crowd serve to inhibit the free working of 
rational thinking and even of those habits, ideas, and stand- 
ards which normally guide the individual in ordinary social 
life. Moreover, the presence of a great number of indi- 
viduals in close proximity not only increases nervous excite- 
ment and suggestibility but also serves to make the individual 
lose his sense of responsibility. He becomes simply an anon- 
ymous unit in a mass. A group of individuals in such a 
condition is very manifestly apt to behave in an exaggerated 
manner, differently from what they would in ordinary life. 
Acquired habits, the control of reflective thought, and the 
sense of individual responsibility drop away, and individuals 
are left only with their impulses, emotions, and the example 
of the crowd itself to guide them. The emotions which are 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 357 


strongly stimulated also exert a strong inhibiting influence 
upon other emotions and impulses. 

It is no wonder, therefore, as Professor Allport says, that 
“the reaction of the individual in the crowd is a primitive, 
unsocialized response.” 14 He adds that the deeds of crowd 
members are not rationally controlled because thought proc- 
esses in crowds are used only to serve instinctive impulses 
or emotions, and not to direct them. Hence, civilized men 
often act like savages in crowds. The crowd becomes a 
mere creature of impulse, liable to follow any extreme sug- 
gestion in the line of the emotion which has been excited, 
because critical thought is inhibited. Crowds thus become 
capable of performing the basest deeds, though at the same 
time for the same reason they may act heroically. Social 
and moral conduct of the highest sort, however, is impossible 
for the crowd, because its actions are simply the result of a 
suggestion-imitation process acting upon the level of mere 
impulse and emotion. Hence, crowds are always intolerant 
and irrational. They are, therefore, not to be trusted to 
advance the work of civilization. So far as possible, crowds 
in the psychological sense should be avoided, or else kept 
under such control that critical-mindedness and the sense of 
individual responsibility are kept alive. This is very difficult 
to do, and Professor Ross’s judgment of crowd behavior will 
always remain valid, when he says: 

“It is safe to conclude that amorphous, heterogeneous 
assemblages are morally and intellectually below the average 
of their members. This manner of coming together spells 
deterioration. The crowd may generate moral fervor, but 
it never sheds light. If at times it has furthered progress, 
it is because the mob, with its immense physical and emo- 
tional force, serves as an ice-breaker to open a channel for 
pent-up humanity, as a battering ram to raze some moldering, 





14 Allport, Social Psychology, p. 317. 


358 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


bat-infested institution and clear the ground for something 
better. This better will be the creation of gifted individuals, 
of deliberative bodies, never of anonymous crowds. It is 
easier for masses to agree on a Nay than on a Yea. This is 
why crowds have destroyed despotisms, but have never built 
free states; have abolished evils, but have never instituted 
works of beneficence. Essentially atavistic and sterile, the 
crowd ranks as the lowest of the forms of human associa- 
tion.” 15 

Perhaps these words of Professor Ross should be remem- 
bered more in connection with those amorphous crowds which 
so readily degenerate into mobs, than in connection with 
more or less organized groups. ‘The essential evil in the 
crowd is the heightened suggestibility which comes from 
emotional excitement. This it is which makes a crowd rever- 
sionary in its social behavior. Primitive impulses come to 
expression, and, as Professor Ross says, it matters not under 
such conditions whether it is a crowd of sages or a crowd 
of hoodlums. In either case, its members tend to revert to 
the animal level of behavior, That civilized men are capable 
of such behavior is a forceful illustration of the power of 
suggestion and imitation in human society under certain con- 
ditions. It is also further evidence that the conditions and 
forms of human association need to be carefully watched, 
and that individual character is not alone sufficient to guar- 
antee good social conduct, apart from these conditions. 


Imitation as a Factor in Social Order 


Both conventionality imitation and custom imitation may 
be powerful influences in favoring social order. The imi- 
tation of one’s contemporaries, as we have seen, helps to 
bring about the unity and order which we find in human 





15 Ross, Foundations of Sociology, p. 126. 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 359 


groups. This is especially true where the social intercourse 
of the members of the group is close and intimate. Under 
such circumstances social groups of all sorts readily fall into 
similarities of activity and habit which they pick up imita- 
tively from one another. This serves greatly to aid in keeping 
the life of the group as a whole harmonious. 

- It is chiefly custom imitation, however, which acts as a 
conservative factor favoring social order in human groups. 
The social importance of usages, of customs, and of tradi- 
tions in preserving social continuity has already been pointed 
out, and the importance of these processes is, of course, the 
importance of imitation. We noted how from a very early 
age the child absorbs imitatively the examples of behavior 
and character furnished by his associates in his primary 
groups. In many cases these imitative absorptions from 
early environment remain the dominant elements in the char- 
acter of the individual throughout life. Thus are to be 
explained, without any doubt, the peculiar, local traits which 
we find in nearly all communities. National peculiarities are 
very largely acquired by the participation of each individual 
in the customs and traditions of his country. Even in the 
industrial and technological realms where rational utility is 
supposed to reign supreme, usages, customs, and traditions 
are found, upon careful analysis, not less than in other 
phases of social life, only more under the control of intelli- 
gence. 

Social order and organization are, accordingly, very largely 
conserved through imitative processes. Only the simpler 
forms of social organization may be supposed to spring 
directly from human needs or from mere habituation to 
physical environment, without the intermediation of imita- 
tion. In all other cases, imitation acts as a mediating process 
by which social and cultural forms, and so the order of 
groups, are preserved. 


360 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Imitation as a Factor in Social Progress 

The “imitation sociologists” have rightly emphasized the 
important part which the imitation of new inventions by the 
mass of individuals plays in social change and social progress. 
There can scarcely be any doubt that this is the method by 
which the most striking advances have been made in civilized 
human society. As we have already seen, the imitation of 
gifted leaders has been a factor of supreme importance in 
the social progress of all civilized communities. The impor- 
tance of this imitation of superior individuals, if borne in 
mind, will help to clear up some of the obscurities which 
have surrounded another sort of imitation which has played 
an important role in progress—namely, the imitation of one 
group by another, or “borrowing.” 


The Diffusion of Culture *® 

This latter sort of imitation, the imitation which results 
from the contact of groups, especially those of dissimilar 
culture, has been one of the most powerful influences in 
human history. Civilization has been spread very largely 
through the imitation of the culture of one group by another. 
So far as we know, no civilization has ever been developed 
by a people without borrowings from other peoples. In the 
history of existing modern nations these borrowings have 
been so extensive that no modern nation can be said to have 
developed its own civilization. Western civilization as a 
whole was constituted by borrowings from the various peo- 
ples of antiquity, especially the Hebrews, Greeks, and 
Romans; and in the course of its development it has bor- 
rowed extensively even from the civilizations of the Orient. 
Hence, it is a safe conclusion that every existing culture in 
the world has borrowed to a greater or less degree from other 
cultures. 


16 See Wissler, Man and Culture, Chaps. VIII, IX. 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE 301 


Now the mutual imitation resulting from the contact of 
dissimilar cultures has been, on the whole, favorable to social 
progress. Such mutual imitation has favored the develop- 
ment of social plasticity in customs and institutions, and so 
has given a chance for rational social selection. Under such 
circumstances many new social adaptations are made, and 
if the general condition of intelligence in the group is high 
enough, these adaptations are usually of a higher type, that 
is, progressive. The mutual borrowings of the various peo- 
ples of the earth have, therefore, not only brought about 
social changes, but also furthered social progress. Exchange 
vitalizes culture not less than industry. 

The rise and spread of the Christian movement in the 
early centuries of the Christian Era affords an excellent 
illustration of the part which the imitation of standards of 
conduct has played in human progress. There can be no 
doubt that Christianity, as a set of moral and social attitudes, 
spread over western Europe largely through an imitative 
process. Such attitudes, however, failed to spread in Africa 
and in Asia to any great extent, probably because their spread 
was limited by certain cultural conditions. In other words, 
antagonistic usages and customs were met to a greater degree 
in Africa and in Asia. The acceptance of Christianity by 
Western peoples, however, has been effective for social prog- 
ress, not in proportion as its attitudes and standards have 
been blindly imitated, but in proportion as there has been 
intelligent assimilation and understanding of these attitudes 
and standards and intelligent application of them to the social 
life. In the Chrisitan movement many factors other than 
mere imitation were evidently at work. As we have already 
said, the learning process, whether on the part of groups or 
individuals, is only in part an imitative process. Moreover, 
it is not pure imitation or fashion imitation, which in the long 
run is effective for social progress, but rather rational imi- 
tation. In other words, the imitative process, if it is to result 


362 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in better social adaptation, must work in combination with 
critical intelligence. 


Ethnographic Parallels ** 


The study of social origins illustrates in a very striking 
and conclusive way both the importance and the limitations 
of the imitative process as a factor in social and cultural 
evolution. In spite of the position of one school of anthro- 
pologists, there is no good reason to believe that all human 
civilization has been diffused from a single primitive center. 
Early civilizations started not in one center, but apparently 
in many centers. Thus we have no reason to suppose that 
the bow and arrow were invented as weapons but once, and 
then spread to all the rest of the world by borrowing or 
imitation. ‘The evidence seems to show that the bow and 
arrow were invented several times independently by different 
peoples. Again, if we take the cultures of the American 
Indians before the discovery of the two Americas by Euro- 
peans, we find no less than fifteen distinct culture areas. 
While it is improbable that these were unconnected, yet some 
of them were so distinct that we must consider them distinct 
centers of origin and invention. It is right to trace con- 
nections or borrowings between cultures when they are con- 
tiguous or when we can show such borrowings to have existed 
historically, but we should not assert a connection when there 
is no evidence. Peoples widely distant in space are often 
found to have developed closely similar customs and insti- 
tutions. In some cases evidence of cultural contact and of 
borrowing have been established; but in many other cases 
there is no such evidence. Thus, there is no evidence to show 
that the widespread custom of deforming the skull, which 
existed among barbarous peoples in at least a half dozen 
widely separated centers, has spread from some single center. 





17 See Kroeber, Anthropology, Chap. IX. 


IMITATION AND GROUP LIFE | 363 


How then, shall we explain these “ethnographic parallels” 
which we find among peoples widely separated? The reason- 
able supposition is that with similar desires and intellectual 
capacities human nature has worked out similar ideas and 
practices, especially in approximately the same stages of cul- 
ture. Unless we can show that similarities among different 
peoples are the result of borrowing, they are especially to 
be explained as adaptations to similar environments. For 
example, we find similarities in the cultures of the peoples 
inhabiting the arid plateaus of both North and South Amer- 
icas. There is little evidence that these similarities were due 
to borrowing; they appear to be adaptations to similar phys- 
ical environment. Again, many of the common traits of 
American Indian groups were due simply to the lack of ani- 
mals suitable for domestication on the American continent. 
In general, similarities in the social organization, religion, 

and technologies of all peoples are to be explained quite as 
- much through the general traits of human nature and the 
general level of culture, as through imitation of one group 
by another group. 

Accordingly, neither borrowing nor originality, neither 
imitation nor invention, should be overstressed in interpret- 
ing social evolution. Both have played a great part in social 
development, and it is a psychological mistake to derive one 
from the other ; for originality and invention are closely con- 
nected with organic variation. It is a mistake to construct 
a sociology which leaves human creativeness and variability 
out of account. But it is equally a mistake to ignore the 
importance of imitation as a factor in social development ; 
for while heredity, environment, habit, and intelligence con- 
tinually condition the working of the imitative process in 
human society, yet within the limits imposed by these it is 
an important and relatively independent factor. Imitation, 
as we have repeatedly said, is only a method for bringing 
about social adaptation; but because in human groups it is 


364 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


one of the most important methods of social adjustment, 
group life and human history cannot be understood apart 
from it. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Ross, Social Psychology, Chaps. III-XI. 

Auport, Social Psychology, Chap. X. 

BaLpwin, Mental Development in the Child and the Race, Chaps. 
IX-XII; Social and Ethical Interpretations, Chaps. XI-XIII. 

Bocarpus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Chaps. XI-XV. 

BusHEE, Principles of Sociology, Chap. XX VI. 

Davis, Psychological Interpretations of Society, Chaps. VI-X. 

GinsBERG, The Psychology of Society, pp. 22-33, and Chap. IX. 

KRoEBER, Anthropology, Chaps. VIII, IX. 

Le Bon, The Crowd, Book I. 

McDovca.t, Introduction to Social Psychology, Chap. XV. 

Martin, The Behavior of Crowds. 

Piatt, The Psychology of Social Life, Chaps. IV-VII. 

Sip1s, The Psychology of Suggestion, Part III. 

SUMNER, Folkways, pp. 174-181. 

TARDE, Social Laws; The Laws of Imitation. 

Wat.as, The Great Society, Chap. VIII. 

WissLer, Man and Culture, Chaps. VI-IX, 


CHAPTER); Wit 
FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 


In the chapter immediately preceding this, we noted the 
close connection of sympathy, in the sense of feeling as 
others feel, with the suggestion-imitation process. Also in 
previous chapters we have noted the close connection of 
feeling in general and of special processes in which feeling 
predominates, such as interest, desire, emotion, and senti- 
ment, with human behavior and with group life. We shall 
now need to analyze a little more closely the part which 
feeling plays in human relations. 


The Function of Feeling in Group Life 


Feeling, as we saw in Chapter III, is the most primitive 
evaluator of activity. Probably before even perceptions were 
formed, action was sensed as either pleasant or unpleasant. 
Consequently all of the more primary elements in our mental 
life and in behavior have strong feeling tones attached to 
them. This is especially true of our relations with other 
individuals, and so with group life. We saw in Chapter III 
how feeling was attached both to instinctive tendencies and 
to habits, and how it might act accordingly in a conservative, 
a reversionary, or a progressive manner. We do not wish 
to dwell upon this matter further, but rather to call attention 
to the fact that all our social life and social behavior are 
not only embedded in feeling, but largely guided and con- 
trolled by feeling. This is particularly true in the case of 
primary groups such as the family and the local community, 
but it is also not infrequently true of very large secondary 


1Compare Chaps. III, V. 
365 


366 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


groups, such as the state, the religious sect, and the political 
party. Our world might be more ideal, perhaps, if it could 
be controlled more nearly by intelligence; but as feeling is 
the primitive evaluator of action, there can be no doubt that 
the mass of men, especially those intellectually undeveloped, 
are controlled more by feeling than by thought. We may 
recall Professor Cooley’s remark that ‘“‘sentiment lies deeper 
than thought.”?: Not only primitively, but even at the 
present time the behavior of groups is largely controlled by 
feeling. If this is so, those who would direct and control 
group behavior must know the feelings and emotions and 
become skillful in their handling. This has always been true 
of the great leaders of men, and the scientific guidance of 
human society must also take feeling into account. It may 
not be quite true, as Benjamin Kidd asserted,® that civiliza- 
tion rests upon emotion rather than upon reason. For we 
have already noted that feeling is an accompaniment rather 
than an originator of activity. Nevertheless, because feeling 
gives value to activity, and because our valuing attitudes are 
largely feeling, it is feeling which chiefly sanctions behavior, 
at least for the mass of men. In other words, feeling is a 
subjective process within the individual which powerfully 
reinforces or inhibits action. Practically, therefore, we can 
do nothing great without the drive which feeling furnishes 
to action. From the earliest times, therefore, group life has 
in one way or another sought to organize and control feeling, 
to stir up enthusiasm and emotion in one direction or another, 
to cultivate some sentiments in the group and to discourage 
others. 


Feeling and Social Values 


This is particularly seen in the process of group evaluation. 
Certain values have to be diffused throughout the individuals 





2Cooley, Social Organization, p. 177. 
8 Kidd, The Science of Power, p. 124. 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 367 


of a group in order to secure uniformity of response. These 
values diffused throughout the group are “the social values,” 
and are very largely the social side of individual attitudes 
and behavior.* The social values of a group, in other words, 
are those attached to group usages, customs, and institutions. 
They secure uniform attitudes toward practically all these 
regularities in group behavior. When the social values of a 
group are known, we can predict the behavior of the group 
along any line with practical certainty. This is particularly 
illustrated on the economic side of group life. Markets and 
exchanges are very largely devices to get at the valuing 
process along various economic lines in a group; and from 
the values registered in market prices we know approxi- 
mately what the action of a group will be with regard to 
some commodity or service. 

While society has devised no such Aiaiehiteray as yet to 
register its moral, political, and educational valuations, yet 
it is scarcely open to doubt that the valuing process in these 
other phases of social life plays the same role that it does 
in the economic phase. In other words, social values underlie 
the social attitudes and social behavior of men. These values 
become a highly conscious matter in the higher phases of 
human culture. They may be attached to patterns of action 
not yet realized as well as to usages, customs, and institutions 
already established. The values of a group may in other 
words be forward-looking and idealistic, or they. may be 
simply customary and conservative. 


Feeling and Social Motivation 


A motive is any spring of action. We have already seen 
that some psychologists and sociologists have held that the 


ns SE ORE YT a 

4 This is following Thomas’s analysis, The Polish Peasant, Vol. I, 
pp. 20-35. From the point of view of the individual, however, 
value is the more subjective and attitude and behavior the more 
objective side of the same process. 


368 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


native impulses or instinctive tendencies are the sole source 
of human motives; but the better scientific opinion is that 
any active mental process or element in behavior may become 
a conscious motive. Without denying the power of natural 
impulses as motives on the lower levels of social behavior, 
it is certain that many higher motives are possible. Feeling 
is especially apt to become prominent as a motive in con- 
sciousness, because when our natural impulses or habits are 
impeded we experience conscious desire; and the main ele- 
ment in desire is undoubtedly feeling. If it is a natural im- 
pulse or instinctive tendency that is blocked we will probably 
experience emotion; for emotion as we have seen is a com- 
plex of sensation, perception, and feeling attached to in- 
stinctive reactions, or rather, which results when these re- 
actions do not work smoothly. As such reactions have a very 
strong drive to action,,so also have the accompanying emo- 
tions. It is for this reason that emotion is considered by 
many writers to be the great motivator of human behavior. 
This is probably correct in all great crises of life, whether 
individual or social; but in the ordinary affairs of life, as 
we have already seen, we are more apt to be motivated by 
our ordinary desires, sentiments, and values, which hardly 
reach such intensity that they deserve to be called emotions, 
though there is of course a feeling, if not an emotional ele- 
ment, in all of these processes. 

It is safe, at any rate, to recognize the fact that feeling 
is much more than a mere accompaniment of action, but 
that it reinforces action and thus plays a great part in the 
motivation of behavior; and that in all crises the great 
achievements of groups are largely accomplished through the 
direction of collective emotion. We may probably also agree 
that “ideas do not have potency of themselves; they derive 
this from their emotional connections.” ® At any raté, ideas 
derive their potency from their connections with feeling and 


5 Stratton, Anger: Its Moral and Religious Significance, p. 4. 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 369 


impulse. It is also true that the higher energies of men, as 
James said, are locked or set free by the gates of the emo- 
tions.6 If we wish to move men we must find ways of ap- 
pealing to their feelings and emotions. But a question re- 
mains, namely, what feelings and emotions should be appealed 
to? 

Typical emotions which have been appealed to in order 
to bring about desired group behavior in the past have been 
fear, anger, and sympathy. Perhaps it should be recognized 
that the appeal to any emotion may have some justification if 
it is certain that group welfare demands it. However, social 
psychologists have come to recognize that certain feelings 
and emotions tend better to unite men, and therefore to 
secure the higher development of social life, while other 
feelings and emotions tend towards social disintegration. 
The emotion of anger and its corresponding sentiment of 
hatred, for example, while it may tend to unite a group 
against its foe, will hardly tend, if directed against human 
beings, toward the integration of all men into one group. 
Such primitive emotions as fear and anger as a rule therefore 
do not work towards the higher developments of social and 
cultural life. It is only when these primitive emotions are 
brought to support the more socializing emotions of sympathy 
and love that they may favor higher social and cultural 
development. 

Accordingly we must recognize the division of our emotions 
into the socially constructive and the socially destructive or 
disintegrating. In motivating social action, the appeal should 
be primarily to such socially constructive emotions as sympa- 
thy and love, and only secondarily, if at all, to fear and 
anger. In other words, under most normal human circum- 
stances such primitive emotions as fear and anger, on ac- 
count of their socially destructive and brutalizing effect, 


should be kept in the background and made to support the 


rm 
-6 Op. cit., p. 4. 


370 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


more socially constructive emotions. This is the more true 
because all the higher social virtues and achievements depend 
upon friendly impulses and cooperative attitudes. Pro- 
fessor Stratton has perhaps summed up the matter very 
well, if we take the standpoint of group life and consider 
its relations to feeling. He says, “The affections, the ap- 
preciations—of one’s self as well as of others—are the 
primal forces of life.’ He goes on to say, “Not even pure 
intelligence, if one could have it free from all affections, 
could supply their motive power and leadership.” And he 
concludes, “There are four great emotional impulsions: two 
that are originative and leading, namely love and self-in- 
terest; and two that are ancillary and supporting, namely 
anger and fear.’”’? If we accept this position, then it be- 
comes clear that the motivation for social action must be 
sought largely in the feelings and the emotions, and espe- 
cially in the sympathetic feelings and emotions. We must 
accordingly try to see the part which sympathy plays in 
human group life. 


The Nature of Sympathy 


Sympathy is a word which has been used so broadly that 
hardly any two writers attach to it the same meaning, and 
consequently there has been confusion and vagueness as to 
the role of this feeling element in the social life. There 
are at least three main types of sympathy in human society ; 
and although they are closely related processes, let us dis- 
tinguish carefully these three distinct kinds of “sympathy.” 

1. First, sympathy is often used by social and psychological 
writers to denote what we have called induced feeling, or 
“feeling as others feel.” This is often called popularly 
“contagion of feeling,’ but the better scientific term would 
be “organic sympathy.’ It is to be seen in all of the higher 
gregarious animals. It is easily observed in children and in 





7 Stratton, op. cit., p. 69. 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 371 


large masses of human beings, such as crowds, in emotional 
circumstances. All human beings are apt to reflect the same 
mood of feeling which they find in their associates. When 
some one gets angry, another is apt to get angry too; when 
some one shows fear, others are apt to show fear also. This 
is probably a conditioned response, but it is also a suggestion- 
imitation process. Sympathy in this sense, as we have already 
said, is the feeling side of imitation, or doing as others do. 
Such organic sympathy is, however, very important in group 
life. McDougall has called it “the cement that binds animal 
societies together.” ® It is, in any case, important as a re- 
inforcement of those uniform activities which help to unify 
a social group. Like imitation, it is one of the simplest 
types of stimulus-response and one of the simplest forms 
of social adaptation. Such organic sympathy may also be 
regarded as the feeling side of like-mindedness, which we 
have seen to be so important for the unity of human groups; 
and it depends not only upon organic similarities but, as 
Professor Giddings has pointed out, upon the perception of 
similarities. Even in this broadest sense, however, sym- 
pathy is not so much the basis of group life as a psychic 
means of maintaining and developing the life of groups. 
Like imitation it implies a previous development of group 
- life. 

2. A more common meaning given to the word sympathy 
among sociological writers is that of friendly feeling, or 
feeling for others. Perhaps a betier name for this sort of 
sympathy would be “compassion.” This word, indeed, was 
originally the exact Latin equivalent for the Greek word 
“sympathy.” ® It has come, however, to have a more limited 
meaning, and distinctly stands for an emotion of an altruistic 
character. Popularly, however, sympathy is used in nearly 





8 McDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 93. 
Latin, con, with, passus, suffered; Greek, syn, with, pathos, 
suffering. 


ove PSYCHOLOGY ; OFUEUIMEAN (SOGIE TY, 


the same sense, only with a somewhat wider range, covering 
all sorts of altruistic feelings from friendly feeling to com- 
passion and pity. In other words we may use sympathy 
as a collective term for various altruistic feelings and emo- 
tions. 

Sympathy in this sense is not a mere feeling as others 
feel, but is altruistic feeling. McDougall, who calls this type 
of sympathy “active sympathy,’ ?° argues that it is based 
upon the gregarious, or herd, instinct. It is certainly closely 
connected with the family life and with group life gen- 
erally. It accompanies not only the instinctive reactions con- 
nected with group life but also the habits. It is usually non- 
reflective in character because it is so closely associated 
with the natural impulses and habits connected with group 
life. Indeed, sympathy in the sense of friendly feeling may 
be said to be the feeling which accompanies harmonious as- 
sociation and reinforces man’s natural and acquired impulses 
toward association and cooperation. It leads spontaneously 
to helping the members of one’s group and to mutual aid. 
It is preéminently “the social emotion” in the sense that 
it is the name for the emotional attitude which normally 
accompanies harmonious association and cooperation. Such 
sympathy is important in the social life as a basis for all 
the forms of natural affection between individuals, such as 
friendship and family affection, and also as a basis upon 
which are built up many altruistic sentiments. Finally, it 
is important as the basis of rational sympathy. 

3. The third type of sympathy is rational or reflective 
sympathy. It is simply the second type developed, guided, 
and controlled by reflective thinking. Usually, however, 
the thinking is not in the form of reasoning, but in the form 
of imagination. We put ourselves imaginatively in the place 
of some other person or persons, and thus we are able to 
understand them and to sympathize with them. The de- 


10 McDougall, op. cit., pp. 168-172. 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 373 


velopment of rational sympathy in society depends, there- 
fore, upon the cultivation of social imagination. It is doubt- 
less for this reason that Ward argued that all sympathy 
comes from reflection, and that sympathy is “a rational 
faculty.” 144 The correct statement, however, would be that 
sympathy is primarily organic, then impulsive, and only in 
its later and higher developments does it become reflective. 
The imagination and reasoning, acting in connection with 
natural sympathetic emotions, serve greatly to stimulate and 
develop the latter; but this does not change their essential 
character. We could not sympathize with people even re- 
flectively if we did not have an organic basis for sympathy. 
Rational sympathy is, therefore, no more egoistic than other 
forms of sympathy. We should not be able to identify 
ourselves with others imaginatively if we did not have some 
natural altruism to begin with. 

Rational sympathy is the most valuable form of sympathy 
in all the higher phases of social development, because it is 
subject to rational control. It can, moreover, be cultivated 
through the social imagination. It is indispensable in build- 
ing up the higher social and altruistic sentiments which have 
characterized the most advanced civilizations. Experience 
has shown that through the cultivation of rational sympathy 
we most surely direct the activities of individuals in an 
altruistic rather than an egoistic direction. It is the chief 
means of motivation of rational altruism. 


The Relations of Sympathy and Altruism 


Many psychologists have said that sympathy is not al- 
truistic and that there is little or no relation between sympathy 
and altruism. This is, of course, true if by sympathy is 
meant only “feeling as others feel,’ or organic sympathy. 
On the other hand, a recent questionnaire in a large city 
elicited the fact that four-fifths of those who contributed 


11 Ward, Pure Sociology, p. 423. 


374. PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


to its organized charities said they did so because of sym- 
pathy. Evidently these people were using the word in a 
different sense. The whole controversy as to the relations of 
sympathy and altruism illustrates the difficulty which con- 
stantly arises in the social sciences from the use of the same 
term in various senses. Hardly any one would deny that 
there is a close connection between compassion and altruistic 
behavior. Of course, sympathy as a form of feeling is not 
the root of altruistic impulses. These are given to us in 
our organic make-up. All feeling, as we have already em- 
phasized, is an accompaniment. of activity, not its original 
basis. Therefore, the roots of altruism must, of course, 
be sought in the life-process as a whole rather than in any 
form of feeling or emotion. However, feeling as an evalua- 
tor of activity motivates behavior and modifies an activity 
either in the way of reinforcing it or inhibiting it; and this 
is as true of sympathetic feeling as of any other sort. 

Therefore, sympathy in the sense of compassion, or even 
of friendly feeling, does play an important part in the motiva- 
tion of altruistic behavior. Whether such sympathy is un- 
reflective or rational it accompanies altruistic behavior and 
reinforces it. It is safe to say that the development of altru- 
ism, in the sense of that attitude, whether natural or acquired, 
which is favorable to others and especially to the welfare of 
large groups, is impossible without sympathy. Especially 
are those higher forms of altruistic behavior which civiliza- 
‘tion finds it necessary to encourage impossible without ra- 
tional sympathy. 

Practically it is correct, therefore, if we use the word 
sympathy in the popular sense, to regard sympathy as the 
feeling side of altruism and altruism as the active expression 
of sympathy. “Love” is often used as a popular term for 
altruism, and it has the advantage of indicating the large 
feeling element in altruistic action. For “love” usually im- 
plies both a valuing of others and a devotion to their wel- 





FEELING AND GROUP LIFE "378 


fare. Our love for a person is our valuation of that per- 
son plus our devotion to that person’s welfare. It may, 
of course, be upon a very selfish basis; but in so far as it 
becomes unselfish, it has to be based upon social sympathy, 
upon identifying ourselves in feeling with others. All the 
higher, more ethical forms of love, therefore, imply com- 
passion and reflective sympathy. This is especially true of 
the love of humanity, as only through social imagination and 
reflective sympathy can we come to value human beings 
whom we never see and be devoted to their welfare. 
Altruistic sentiments in general, and humanitarian sentiments 
in particular, can be built up in human groups only through 
the cultivation of social imagination and reflective sympathy. 
The growth of good will, and especially of philanthropic 
activities, in civilized human society must be regarded, ac- 
cordingly, as a development due very largely to the increase 
of sympathy, especially of rational sympathy. But we have 
here again the circular type of reaction, because it is not less 
true that the increase of philanthropic activity increases 
sympathy and good will. 

Our conclusion must be, consequently, that sympathetic 
feeling is psychologically a very important element in the 
social life in the way of reinforcing altruism, or action favor- 
able to others. It is hardly possible for good will to exist 
among the members of a group without understanding and 
sympathy. Even sympathy in the lowest sense of common 
feeling produces solidarity of feeling in the group as a whole, 
and so helps to maintain the unity of the group; while the 
other forms of sympathy, through suggestion-imitation, 
spread good will in the whole group. If we desire to develop 
good will in all humanity, human groups must be persuaded 
to cultivate more widely and more actively an intelligent 
sympathy with one another. 


376 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


The Connection of Sympathy with the Consciousness of 
Kind 

Professor Giddings has pointed out that sympathy is 
intimately related in all of its forms with what he calls the 
“consciousness of kind.’’ Indeed, he speaks of it as a phase 
of the consciousness of kind in its broadest sense.’ Using 
this phrase in a more restricted sense, however, meaning by 
it simply “the consciousness of similarity,’ we may ask, 
“What is the relation of this intellectual process to sympathy 
in its various forms?” 

There can be no doubt that the relation is a close one. We 
have already pointed out that organic sympathy is not only 
based upon organic and mental similarity, but is: stimulated 
by the perception of such similarity. The second and third 
types of sympathy are also closely associated with conscious- 
ness of physical, mental, and moral similarity. Our failure 
to sympathize with people is often due to our failure to 
appreciate their similarity to ourselves. Apparently the whole 
development of sympathy and altruism in animal life has been 
mediated by the consciousness of similarity. Even in such 
low forms of life as a school of fish, there is probably some 
consciousness of mutual resemblance which aids in keeping | 
them together. In nearly all forms of animal life some 
recognition of kind, of species, seems to accompany sex at- 
traction and parental care, though some experiments would 
seem to show that in such lower forms of life, such conscious- 
ness, if it exists at all, is very vague and indefinite. There 
is scarcely any doubt, however, that it is the activities con- 
nected with the reproductive process and with living together 
in groups which have genetically given rise to sympathetic 
feelings or emotions. If the consciousness of kind mediated 
these activities, it would also mediate the accompanying sym- 
pathetic emotions. 


12 Giddings, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, pp. 278-289, 207. 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 377 


It will be easier to see this if we turn to human beings. 
In general, we find it difficult to understand or sympathize 
with others unless we think of them as essentially similar 
to ourselves. This is because we can only think of others 
more or less in terms of ourselves. When apparent dif- 
ferences between two social classes, such as the Negro and 
the white, or the uncivilized and the civilized, are great, it 
is very difficult to get sympathy and understanding between 
the two classes. Indeed, this can usually be brought about 
only by getting the more cultured class to see that the less 
cultured class is, after all, not ‘so different. Some percep- 
tion of resemblance, in other words, seems absolutely neces- 
sary as a stimulus to sympathetic emotion. 

For this reason, Professor Giddings has laid it down as 
a law that sympathy between two individuals or between 
two groups is proportionate to their resemblance, or rather to 
their consciousness of resemblance, whether actual or po- 
tential? Probably there is no such law, for we often see 
two similar individuals, who are quite conscious of their 
similarity, yet lack sympathy for one another; and it is 
notorious that individuals of different sex or age with com- 
plementary differences often sympathize with one another 
more readily than with persons of their own sex or age. 
Sympathy seems rather to be proportionate to the harmony 
of the adjustment or coordination between individuals or 
groups; and we have seen that this may be promoted by 
differences as well as by similarities. Yet there can be no 
doubt that the consciousness of resemblance is closely con- 
nected with sympathy in all of its forms. Such conscious- 
ness in man acts as a stimulus to his altruistic impulses and 
thus excites, at the same time, sympathetic feelings. It 1s, 
indeed, the intellectual counterpart of sympathy, and may 
perhaps be considered the intellectual side of the same proc- 
ess. Both sympathy and the consciousness of kind are 





_ 18 Giddings, op. cit., pp. 297, 298. 


378 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


psychic means of promoting group unity and, as such, have 
a very close connection. 


The Sympathy Theory of Society 


Even older than the imitation theory of society is the 
sympathy theory. It was first explicitly formulated in 1759 
by Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith 
defined sympathy as “fellow feeling,’ and held that all of 
the moral sentiments were built up on it as a psychological 
basis.4 Social and political organization, accordingly, in so 
far as they were moral, also rested upon sympathy. 

On account of the obvious importance of sympathetic 
feeling and altruistic behavior among animals that live in 
groups, Darwin, also, pointed to sympathy as the chief factor 
which might explain the moral life of mankind and the 
moral aspects of human society.1* Developing these ideas 
of Darwin, Sutherland, in his Origin and Growth of the 
Moral Instinct, set forth the thesis that “the sympathetic 
type is the one which is more and more distinctly emergent 
as we ascend in the animal scale’’;1® and he finds that, so 
far as human society is concerned, “the law of sympathy has 
been the law of progress.” 17 He agrees with Smith in say- 
ing that “sympathy in general is the ultimate basis of all 
moral feeling.” 1° 

Lester F. Ward, also, in his sociology, found a large place 
for sympathy. It will be remembered that he makes feeling 
the primary force in human social life. He finds, conse- 
quently, that sympathy, as that phase of feeling which is 
favorable to others, is the basis for all the higher develop- 
ments in the social life. He holds that it is sympathy which 


14 Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I. 

15 Darwin, Descent of Man, Chap. IV. 

16 Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, Vol. I, 
p. 201. 

17 [bid., p. 10. 

18 [bid., p. 156. 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 379 


makes possible altruism and all humanitarian advances in 
human society. Hence, according to Ward, the essentially 
progressive forces in human society are the sympathetic 
feelings.’ 

Broader and more carefully worked out are the theories 
of Professor Giddings. In his Principles of Sociology, 
published in 1896, he set forth a more synthetic theory which, 
however, recognized the large place which sympathetic feel- 
ing plays in human relations. He found the basis for the 
social life in what he called “the consciousness of kind,” 
which he recognized as a mental state which included the 
element of sympathy, but also included elements of percep- 
tion. His thesis was that social unity, social organization, co- 
operation, and all advances in social adaptation rest upon the 
consciousness of kind as their chief psychological basis. In 
his later works sympathy and the consciousness of kind, 
however, are subordinated to the more fundamental concep- 
tion of similarity, both physical and mental, as the basis of 
social or group life; but the consciousness of kind, beginning 
with organic sympathy and ending with the higher types of 
sympathy, affection, and the perception of likeness, he still 
finds to be the chief psychological factor in all social re- 
lations.”° 

There can be no doubt that all the mental states which 
Professor Giddings groups together under the term, the 
consciousness of kind, are very important for the social 
life, and their importance has not yet been adequately recog- 
nized by all psychological and sociological writers. How- 
ever, all of these sympathetic mental processes concern only 
one side of group life. Sympathy and the consciousness of 
kind must be regarded as one very important factor, or set 





19 Ward, Pure Sociology, pp. 422-426; 450-454. 

20 Giddings, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, pp. 275-355. 
Compare, however, Studies in the Theory of Human Society, 
Chap. XV. 


380 PSYCHOLOGY) OF: HUMAN SOGIETY: 


of factors, in group life, but no single factor or set of factors 
in human nature can furnish an adequate statement for the 


social life as a whole. 


Sympathy as a Factor in Human Society 


We are now prepared to see just how much sympathetic 
feeling and altruistic sentiment are a factor in human re- 
lations. We have already pointed out that the feeling at- 
titudes of individuals toward one another are social attitudes, 
and are very important in initiating and maintaining types 
of adaptation between individuals. Common feeling mo- 
tivates, reinforces, and fixes the common activities of a_ 
group. Sympathy in the sense of common feeling, therefore, 
conduces to the unity of the group; for the unity of feeling 
reinforces the unity of action. In the sense of altruistic or 
friendly feeling, sympathy is a mental and social attitude 
favorable to the development of the higher and more har- 
monious types of social adaptation and cooperation. Thus 
it is the form of feeling which is especially favorable to group 
life. It motivates mutual aid within the group. It makes 
easy complex adjustments which require some sacrifice on 
the part of individuals. It is, in brief, favorable to the 
development of those higher types of relationship and of 
cooperation among individuals, without which the develop- 
ment of higher civilization would be impossible. 

Much cooperation exists in human society, to be sure, which 
is apparently simply the result of the division of labor, and 
is not accompanied by sympathetic feeling or altruistic senti- 
ments among the cooperating individuals. But it may be 
pointed out that such coOperation presupposes a certain 
amount of common feeling among the individuals concerned, 
and a general high level of development of altruistic traits 
in the group. We do not mean to imply that cooperation 
is inconsistent with self-interest, but rather simply to point 
out that the higher and more complex types of cooperation 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 381 


cannot be developed in human society upon a basis of self- 
interest alone. Professor Giddings and others have clearly 
shown that they depend upon a high degree of socialization 
of the individual, and that the conscious forms of codpera- 
tion depend, in some degree, upon the consciousness of kind 
and upon sympathy.?4_ Those who advocate the doctrine 
that the forms of codperation demanded in civilized society 
may rest upon self-interest alone as a sufficient psychological 
_ basis, without any sympathetic or altruistic feeling being en- 
listed, are making a serious sociological mistake. Stable co- 
operation of a complex sort has never existed and can never 
exist, in human society without some degree of sympathy 
and altruism. To this point we shall return later. 

The great work of sympathy in human groups is to mediate 
the formation of good will among their members. Sympathy 
and imagination enable each individual to put himself in the 
place of the other individual. Human groups prosper in 
the long run only through their members reciprocally con- 
ferring benefits upon one another, and altruistic feeling 
diffused through the group is the surest way to bring this 
about. It is only in this way that human societies can de- 
velop the good will among all their members which is es- 
sential to their peace and highest prosperity. As long as, 
and to the extent that, good will remains important in human 
relations, so long and to that extent will sympathy remain 
important. 


The Social Function of Charity 


Charity, in the sense of the help of the socially weak and 
unadjusted, illustrates, as a concrete expression of sympathy 
in human relations, the social function of this feeling element. 
When guided by intelligence, charity strengthens social 
groups by helping those who are out of adjustment with 
their social life to adjust themselves; by helping the weak, 


_ 21Giddings, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, pp. 352-355. 


382 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in other words, to become strong and efficient members of 
their groups. Charity functions, therefore, to increase both 
the unity and the efficiency of social groups. Rescuing those 
overtaken by calamity, caring for the sick and the injured, 
and helping the weak generally increases immensely the 
sense of group solidarity. Hence, all human groups, from 
savage to civilized, have had some sort of system to care 
for their weaker members. 

But charity also illustrates the limitations of sympathy as 
an instrument for bringing about the highest type of social 
adjustment. Unwise charity often leads to great evils in 
society. It may perpetuate the degraded and the unfit, and 
encourage the wicked and worthless. In other words, unless 
sympathy is guided and controlled by intelligence, it may 
produce more misery in society than it can relieve. There 
is much evidence to show that maudlin sympathy is demoral- 
izing-both to individuals and to social classes. Manifestly 
the type of sympathy needed in the complex social life of 
the present is rational sympathy, a sympathy, moreover, 
which is so rational that it seeks guidance in scientific knowl- 
edge. The form of charity which is especially needed in 
modern society is, of course, the form which will seek to 
remove the sources of misery by searching out and remov- 
ing its causes. 

We shall not get rid of the need of sympathy in human 
society, however, by getting rid of the causes of misery. For 
human society will always need sympathy among all of its 
members for harmonious human living. Sympathy is practi- 
cally a means of developing both social order and social 
progress in human groups. Let us see briefly in what ways 
sympathy functions to promote both of these. 


Sympathy as a Factor in Maintaining Social Order 


In Chapter III we pointed out that feeling was a very 
powerful conservative factor in human relations, and it 


' FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 383 


remains only to discuss the influence of sympathy as a feeling 
factor. While the actual achievement of the organization of 
groups is not the work of sympathy, yet after any human 
group has become organized, the role of sympathy as a social 
bond between the members of the group becomes of primary 
importance to its stability and order. Almost any human 
group will illustrate this. The family group is especially 
knit together by bonds of sympathetic feeling; but so also 
are the community and all other genetic groups. All social 
groups and classes, accordingly, seek to cultivate sympathy 
among their members; for the cohesive power of the group 
might be lost if sympathy did not support it. Individuals, 
also, conscious that their successful social adjustment in their 
groups depends upon winning the sympathy of their asso- 
ciates, seek understanding and sympathy from one another. 
All of this, of course, helps to maintain a settled and har- 
monious order in human groups. The whole moral life of 
human groups is, we must admit, closely associated with 
_sympathy in all of its forms. Adam Smith was right to 
this extent, that morality, as we understand it, could not 
exist in human society without sympathy. It is especially in 
the form of altruistic feeling that sympathy reinforces the 
sense of moral obligation. Pure self-interest may prompt the 
meeting of moral obligations to some extent; but in the 
long run such obligations are discharged only in proportion 
as the altruistic impulses of human nature, which sympathy 
reinforces, are cultivated and developed. Consequently, we 
need a high degree of sympathy in human society if we are 
to have anything like a moral social order. Good will is 
a prerequisite for such an order in any human group; and 
sympathy, we have seen, is the form of feeling which 
mediates the development of reciprocal good will among 
the members of a group, and motivates that reciprocity in 
the conferring of benefits which vitalize the life of the 


group. 


384 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY, 


The Sentiment of Kinship 


In primitive societies we find a high development of what 
is known as the sentiment of kinship. This must be re- 
garded as a sentiment built upon the basis of organic and 
rational sympathy plus the consciousness of kind. It was 
the most conspicuous social bond in all genetic human groups 
down to very recent times, and played a very important part. 
in maintaining their unity and continuity. This has also been 
called the “blood bond,” which in all uncivilized, and some- 
times in civilized, groups has been the chief symbol of the 
solidarity of the group. Unquestionably this bond was built 
up on the consciousness of kind, or kinship, and on the 
natural sympathy between the members of the group. This 
sympathy and the sentiments built upon it came in time 
to function, not only to maintain the solidarity of the group, 
but also to maintain all the habits and customs which had 
become. associated with the group’s life. This spreading of 
sympathetic feeling to everything connected with a group’s 
life made the sentiment of kinship a powerful conservative 
social force, helping to maintain institutions and customs 
from generation to generation. Indeed, the sentiment of 
kinship blending with veneration for ancestors often made 
progress next to impossible, except as circumstances in the 
environment compelled readjustments in the group life. 


Sympathy as a Factor in Social Progress 


The student will remember that in Chapter III we in- 
sisted that feeling marks the beginning, as well as the estab- 
lishment, of activities. It has to do with the selection of 
the impulses which are allowed to develop, and so with the 
motivation as well as with the guidance and sustaining of 
developed activity. Hence, conscious changes for the bet- 
terment of human society can be satisfactorily brought about 
only if the feelings are enlisted upon the side of a change; 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 385 


for it is feeling which largely motivates the new adjustment, 
at least upon its individual side. Now, the sympathetic feel- 
ings are obviously those which can be most easily enlisted 
upon the side of changes in human groups. Ward was right, 
therefore, when he insisted that the great humanitarian re- 
forms of the nineteenth century were to be explained largely 
through “the growth of sympathy in the human breast.” The 
appeal on behalf of those who suffer wrong and oppression 
has always been largely an appeal to sympathetic emotions. 
Any reform movement in human society, to be successful, 
must appeal to the sympathetic emotions; but, of course, it 
is the higher and more rational forms of sympathy which 
must be relied upon as truly progressive forces in the 
social life. 

The appeal to mere emotion may result in sympathy work- 
ing the harm which we have just pointed out. It is altruistic 
sentiments developed upon the basis of rational sympathy, 
such as ethical love and the love of humanity, upon which 
civilized society has rightly placed a premium. It is the 
growth of these sentiments which has played a conspicuous 
part in alleviating misery and opening the doors of oppor- 
tunity to all classes in Western civilization. The great in- 
crease of sympathy and altruistic sentiment in modern so- 
ciety, we have every reason to believe to be one of the best 
guarantees of continued progress and the ultimate adjust- 
ment of classes, nations, and races in our world.?? For 
progress comes from the diffusion of culture and the goods 
of culture from a few. A few pioneers achieve a certain 





22 The best biological thought of the present is coming strongly 
to endorse this position, as may be seen in the writings of Conklin, 
Thomson, Patten, and Kellogg. Thus we find Herrick saying (op. 
cit., p. 308): “Altruism and idealism grow, expand and propagate 
as truly as do cunning, acquisitiveness, selfishness and greed; and 
when once society has definitely set its face toward the higher 
standards of relationship, no single community can obstruct the general 
movement,” 


386 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY, 


level and then diffuse their achievements to the many. This 
has been the history of cultural progress. Hence it is not 
too much to say that, throughout all human history, human 
progress has come, through the development of individuals, 
classes, and nations which have been backward or unde- 
veloped. In other words, progress has come through a level- 
ing-up process in communities, nations, and civilizations, 
which has gradually extended the achievements and cultural 
level of a few to the masses of men. It is not too much to 
say, therefore, that progress in our human world must come 
through the development of the undeveloped resources in 
human beings, through the opening of opportunities to those 
backward in social, intellectual, and moral development. We 
now see the justification for an earlier generalization, when 
we said that progress comes through the increase of altruism 
as well as through the increase of knowledge. The increase 
of good will among all elements in humanity is quite as im- 
portant for continued human progress as the increase of 
knowledge and intelligence. 


The Cultivation of Sympathy and Altruism 


It becomes an important practical question, therefore, how 
the higher forms of sympathy and altruism can be cultivated 
in modern society. In the first place- we may note that 
sympathy may increase simply as activities become more 
widely extended and interdependent, simply because feeling 
follows action. To a certain extent the growth of sympathy, 
like the growth of all feeling, may be merely a result of the 
growth of activities realized. If we want people to have 
similar feelings, for example, we have usually only to get 
them to act alike. Again, if we want one individual to 
entertain friendly feelings for another, it is notorious that 
one of the best ways to accomplish this is to get that in- 
dividual to do something kindly for the other. In human 
history sympathetic feeling has often lagged behind and been 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 387 


a resultant of altruistic activity rather than otherwise. One 
way to cultivate sympathy and altruism, therefore, is to 
embark deliberately upon a policy of acting in a friendly, 
helpful way toward others. 

But we may cultivate sympathy and altruism through the 
development of intelligence also. We have pointed out that 
sympathetic feeling may have, and usually does have, a 
very real part in initiating altruistic behavior in human 
groups. Sympathy may motivate altruism; for in man ac- 
tivities of many sorts are gone through imaginatively before 
being realized in actual practice. Thus, the appropriate feel- 
ing tone may be cultivated, and thus, practically, feeling 
may select in advance the impulse which at some future time 
may be developed. Sympathy, in other words, may be culti- 
vated through understanding and imagination. Through the 
development of our consciousness of mental and moral sim- 
ilarities and identities between ourselves and our fellow 
human beings, we come to understand them and to sympa- 
thize with them. While probably not inevitable, sympathy 
is apt to arise spontaneously between those who perceive 
their mental and moral resemblances and who understand 
their similarities in nature and in destiny. Thus the direc- 
tion of the intelligence to the perception and understanding 
of our likeness with our fellow human beings increases our 
sympathy for them and motivates altruistic behavior. The 
growth of intelligence regarding humanity expands our con- 
sciousness of kind; hence such knowledge has been very 
largely responsible for the expansion of sympathy and 
altruism in the modern world. Accordingly another way of 
cultivating sympathy and altruism is to bring about the ex- 
pansion of our knowledge of our fellow human beings, and 
especially of their likenesses in nature and destiny to our- 
selves. 

Probably the greatest means of cultivating sympathetic 
feeling and good will in human society, however, is through 


388 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ethical religion. All the higher ethical religions have in- 
sisted upon the essential kinship of all mankind, and at the 
same time, upon the essential oneness of men in moral condi- 
tion before the Deity. Christianity, especially, has insisted 
upon the brotherhood, that is, the essential kinship, of all 
mankind. It has endeavored to make the sympathies and 
sentiments natural to the family group the standard for all 
moral and social practice. It has declared that the bonds 
of sympathy, altruism, and love which are naturally char- 
acteristic of the family should be the bonds which should 
unite all humanity. The great expansion of sympathy and 
altruism in Western civilization has been very largely due 
to these idealistic teachings of Christianity. Christianity has 
thus been one of the most powerful factors in the develop- 
ment of modern humanitarianism. Science must recognize, 
accordingly, that the sanction given by ethical religion to 
humanitarian sentiments has been most powerful in promot- 
ing their growth. This is, indeed, what we should expect 
if we understand the essential psychological nature of re- 
ligion, as the embodiment of the ideal values and standards 
of a group. The religious sanction attached to those stand- 
ards undoubtedly gives them an emotional power which 
they could not otherwise possess. A religion of ethical love, 
or of the love of humanity, is accordingly supremely im- 
portant for order and progress in higher civilization. 


The Cooperation of Feeling and Intelligence 


We have seen that the feeling which most needs to be 
cultivated in human groups is sympathetic feeling, and in 
humanity as a whole, the love of humanity. We have also 
seen that sympathy and love are just as capable of being 
cultivated in human society as intelligence. If, however, they 
are cultivated apart from intelligence, and if intelligence 
and sympathy are not made to cooperate, the total social 
result may not be one of progress. For example, the nine- 


FEELING AND GROUP LIFE 389 


teenth century witnessed the very great increase of hu- 
manitarian sentiment, and also a great increase of knowl- 
edge and intelligence. Nevertheless, the increase of humani- 
tarian sentiment and of intelligence did not prevent the 
calamity of the World War. The reason for this is not far 
to seek. In the first place, the altruistic sentiments culti- 
vated by the nineteenth century were often narrowly limited 
and partial. In the second place, the intelligence cultivated 
by the nineteenth century was mainly directed toward the 
mastery of physical nature. Consequently, the altruism and 
the intelligence of the nineteenth century were not brought 
together and made to work together. Oftentimes, one undid 
the work of the other. Obviously, intelligence should be placed 
at the service of good will or altruism, and good will should 
be guided by intelligence if we are to expect the best social 
results to follow. Intelligence should be developed in the 
service of social good will rather than by itself. What hu- 
manity needs is obviously an intelligent love which is not 
limited by class, nation, or race. We shall have stable and 
well-balanced progress only when intelligence and good will 
are made to work together for the welfare of all men. As 
Professor Dewey has well said,?* “The separation of warm 
emotion and cool intelligence is the great moral tragedy of 
our present human world.” 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Hosnouse, The Rational Good, Chap. VI; Social Development, 
pp. 148-166. 

BERNARD, Instinct, Chaps. X VITI-XIX. 

Conn, Social Heredity and Social Evolution, Chaps. III, IV. 

Cootey, Human Nature and the Social Order, Chap. IV; Social 
Organization, Chaps. XVI, XVII. 

Darwin, Descent of Man, Chap. IV. 

EpMAN, Human Tratts and Their Social Significance, pp. 
125-137. 


23 Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, p. 258. 


390 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Gippincs, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, pp. 275-356. 

Kipp, The Science of Power, Chaps. IV, V. 

SmituH, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I, Section I. 

STRATTON, Anger: Its Moral and Religious Significance, Intro- 
duction and Part I. 

SUTHERLAND, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, Chaps. 
X-XIV. 

Topp, Theories of Social Progress, Chaps. IV, V. 

Wa tas, The Great Society, Chap. IX. 

We ts, Pleasure and Behavior, Chaps. I, II, V. 

WoopwortH, Dynamic Psychology, pp. 51-58, and 200f. 


CHAPTER XIII 
SOCIAL ORDER 


The Problem of Social Order 


By social order we should mean something more than 
social organization, or even social unity. A low degree of 
organization or unity might exist in a group without order. 
When we use the term “order” we refer to the ideal aspect of 
social organization or social unity. Social order means a 
harmonious relation between the individuals or the parts of 
a group. As the problem of social order is the problem of 
attaining a relatively ideal group life it is a practical and 
ethical problem. It is not a problem in pure science, but 
rather an application of the theoretical principles which we 
have been considering. The problem is: How can rela- 
tionships between individuals, classes, nations, and races 
become harmonized? To answer such a question we shall 
need knowledge of the principles of sociology and social 
psychology; yet it is evident that we shall be dealing more 
or less with questions in social ethics. 

In a certain sense we have already discussed in the pre- 
ceding pages the problem of social order. It is evident, in 
the first place, that all of the factors which enter into social 
organization or affect social unity must also enter, more or 
less, into this problem of social order. In many cases, we 
have already pointed out the bearing of certain factors, such 
as instinctive tendencies, habits, traditions, imitation, and 
sympathy, upon social order. The student should, there- 
fore, review all that has been said in the preceding pages con- 
cerning the working of these different factors in association, 

391 


392 +PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


in order to see clearly how each of them affects the problem 
of social order, or the harmonization of human relationships. 

Such social order as we find in animal groups below the. 
human level is almost entirely an outcome of the effects of 
geographical conditions, biological constitution, and similar- 
ity of instincts, habits, and feeling in the individuals of the 
group. These same agencies, of course, are often powerful 
influences in bringing about social order in human groups. 
We have already seen that harmonious coordination between 
human beings is aided by favorable conditions in the physical 
environment, by similarity of biological constitution, and by 
similarity of instincts, habits, feelings, and ideas in individ- 
uals. While a natural social order may result from the 
working of these factors without intelligent group control, 
they are mainly the presuppositions of social order in human 
groups rather than determining factors. 

For in all human groups we find at work to maintain 
social order something we find in no animal group, namely, 
conscious control by the group itself over individual behavior. 
In all human groups, in other words, there are more or less 
conscious and deliberate means used to coerce and to control 
the individual. These means become organized into behavior 
complexes which are more or less consciously sanctioned 
by the group as a whole. These behavior complexes become 
the habits, customs, and institutions of the group. The 
social order of all human groups is, therefore, in a sense 
artificial. It is a product of the culture of the group. It 
is not simply the natural or spontaneous order springing 
from instinct, unreflective habit, imitation, and sympathy; 
but there are added to these original factors consciously ac- 
cepted customs and institutions. This is shown by the fact 
that the mores of even the lowest human groups are held 
by the group to be necessary for social welfare. We see, 
therefore, that the order of human groups is an achievement 
of culture rather than a product of nature; that it is espe- 


SOCIAL ORDER 393 


cially a product of agencies of social control which have been 
devised and sanctioned by the group. We have already con- 
sidered briefly the bearing of some of these agencies upon 
social unity; we shall now need to reconsider them briefly 
in order to see their work in bringing about social order. 


Social Control 


If the social order of human groups is largely a result of 
conscious social control, we need to consider very briefly, 
before we take up the working of the various agencies of 
control, the nature, phases, and limits of social control. The 
growing complexity of group life as social evolution ad- 
vances calls for ever-increasing means of control over indi- 
vidual behavior and character if conflict between individuals 
and classes is to be avoided and relations among all parts of 
the group harmonized. This is the reason why human 
groups find themselves compelled to devise various means of 
controlling individual behavior and character. Yet evidently 
a danger is inherent in this whole process of social control, 
or of the ascendency of the group over the individual; for 
the control of individual behavior and character may be 
such as to prevent normal changes in the group, and so 
block social progress. Order may result from such control, 
but at the expense of normal social development, and the 
price is too costly; for we have already pointed out that such 
a procedure is bound to result, sooner or later, in social 
disaster. 

Another difficulty in the problem of social control is to 
get the individual to conform his behavior to the require- 
ments of the group life without stirring up his antagonism 
and opposition through too much restraint. Just how com- 
pulsion shall be applied to the individual to get him to con- 
form his habits of thinking, feeling, and acting to those of 
his group is the practical problem of control which has con- 
fronted all human groups. We shall see that groups have 


394 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tried all sorts of means, from the most brutal and despotic 
forms of government to the most subtle control through sug- 
gestion and education. The means of control employed by 
human groups, in other words, are not always rational. 

When the sociologist considers the need of social con- 
trol, and at the same time the original nature of the individ- 
ual, he is not surprised to find that human institutions in 
their efforts to solve this problem have often failed in the 
past, or that some individuals in the complex social life of 
the present have come to take a purely negative attitude 
towards some, if not all, of the agencies of social control. 
This negative attitude which we find in some individuals at 
the present time is no doubt due, in the main, to the natural 
revolt which springs up in individuals when institutions are 
unduly repressive or when other abuses arise in connection 
with them. Nevertheless, this negative attitude is hardly 
rational since, as we have seen, all social organization is 
necessarily more or less compulsory and restraining in its 
effect upon the individual. It is evident, moreover, that in 
very complex social life, the adjustments which the indi- 
vidual is required to make in order to act harmoniously with 
his group are so difficult that they require increasing collec- 
tive supervision and control. In other words, we need more 
social control, not less of it, as social evolution advances; 
but of course we need more rational and socialized forms of 
control. 


Socialization 


A reconciliation of social control and the necessary free- 
dom of the individual is found in the process of socialization. 
External forms of social control depend upon constraint of 
the individual, while socialization would place control within 
the individual. Socialization involves the achievement of 
self-control on the part of the individual, so that he con- 
sciously and voluntarily modifies his behavior and shapes his 


SOCIAL ORDER 305 


purposes to promote the welfare of the whole group. We 
might say, therefore, that the socialization of the individual, 
when achieved, results in social self-control. We have al- 
ready seen that the highly socialized individual has a sense 
of responsibility to his group and, if his socialization is broad 
enough, to humanity as a whole. He is, therefore, depend- 
able and helpful in social relations, mindful of the value of 
social usage, but also independent in thought, courageous, 
willing to experiment, but with full responsibility for the 
results. He is tolerant, his beliefs are subject to review and 
modification ; he is open-minded, but insistent upon evidence, 
critical rather than faultfinding, inventive and creative. 
Hence, in the process of individual socialization we have a 
method of social control which is suitable to the highest 
civilization. It creates personal character. In its highest 
forms it results in the moralization of the individual. It is 
hardly necessary to add that agencies of social control when 
properly developed proceed largely through undertaking the 
socialization of the individual. 


Social Morale 


The socializing process, when carried to its full and com- 
plete development, when it eventuates in social self-control, 
issues in what has come to be called “morale.” It is the 
morale of a group which especially influences its order. As 
we have seen, individuals, through participation in the men- 
tal life of their group, have their behavior more or less trans- 
formed and made to conform to the group standard. If 
the group spirit is high, the morale of the individual is high, 
also; but if the group spirit is low, the morale of the indi- 
viduals is low. Groups always try to discipline and stand- 
ardize the conduct of their individuals. It is this discipline 
and control of the individual by the group which brings 
about the morale of the group. Morale is, therefore, an out- 
come of the socializing process. Its highest type, mani- 


300.) “PSYCHOLOGY OF TiUMAN TSO GIR DY: 


festly, can only be realized when the spirit of the group is 
one of service to all humanity. But even if no such lofty 
moral aim animates the group, it 1s often able, by its spirit, 
to bring about a remarkable morale among its members. 
Kidd claims that this group morale is capable of accomplish- 
ing anything to which it may be directed over long periods of 
time. We must certainly agree that the possibilities of social 
discipline, of social self-control, of social morale have not yet 
been tried out and are far from being realized in our human 
world. We see, on the other hand, abundant evidence of the 
evil results of a lack of social morale in our present human 
world. It would seem that a rational purpose of all agen- 
cies of social control should be to build up the highest type 
of social morale in individuals. If government and law, re- 
ligion, moral ideals, and education do not do this they are 
far from being what they should be. However, we should 
recognize that the mental life of the group as a whole, or 
the group spirit, as we have already pointed out, has even 
more influence on social morale than the special influence of 
agencies of social control. 

Let us now take up the chief agencies which have been 
employed to harmonize the relations between individuals, 
classes, and the greater groups of men. As we have already 
seen, these are government, law, religion, morality, and edu- 
cation. Are all of these agencies needed at the present time 
in order to secure the high degree of social order which our 
civilization requires? Or may some of them be dispensed 
with? Further, how may they be so organized and made to 
work as not to become impediments to social progress? 


Government and Law as Means of Social Control 


From one point of view government may be regarded as 
the chief means of social control in human society in that, 
as an agency to enforce law, it must be the last resort in 
controlling conduct in any group. While government, as we 


—— ————————— ee — 


SOCIAL ORDER | | 397 


understand the word, probably began as a means of control 
in time of war, it has extended its control over practically 
all human activities. Much older than government is law, 
which is rooted in the habits and customs of human groups. 
In practically all human groups that we know, however, or- 
ganized government has taken over the enforcement of law. 
Both law and government evidently concern themselves im- 
mediately with only overt or external behavior. It is only 
indirectly, as we shall see, that they can take into account 
things other than objective behavior. For this reason, they 
represent the minimum rather than the maximum of control 
which is necessary for the harmonization of group life. They 
signify what the group will tolerate. 

Negatively, the functions of government and law are those 
of social restraint, to enforce certain social inhibitions and 
to inflict penalties for their violation. These are what are 
known as the “police functions” of government, and many 
nineteenth century writers tended strongly to limit govern- 
ment and law to these functions. But it is a great mistake 
to think of government mainly in terms of its police powers 
or to think of it mainly as a repressive agency in society. 
Whatever may have been the origin of government, prac- 
tically all writers now agree that its function is constructive, 


_ and only incidentally repressive. Positively, government and 


law exist to harmonize and integrate the activities of the mem- 
bers of the group, first with reference to securing internal 
order and then with reference to social welfare generally. 
This is sometimes expressed by saying that the first function 
of government is “the integration of society.” At any rate 
the social welfare conception of government and law is com- 
ing, in all scientific treatises, to replace the negative con- 
ception. 

As soon as we emphasize the positive functions of gov- 
ernment and law to promote social welfare, we can no longer 
think of these agencies as merely static. They are organs 


308 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of adjustment standing above the individuals, classes, and 
minor institutions of the group, functioning to harmonize 
the relations of all of these, and so to secure justice to 
all and to promote the welfare of the whole. Govern- 
ment and law exist to secure social order, but they need not 
interfere with social progress. They should not so much 
repress individual and group activity as promote unity and co- 
operation. In other words, the functions of government 
under this welfare conception become, as John Stuart Mill 
said, “coextensive with human interests.” It should under- 
take to do whatever it can do effectively for the welfare of 
the people. Even if we limit the action of government and 
law to objective behavior, it follows from the welfare con- 
ception that that government is not best which governs least, 
but rather that which governs most, provided it does so in 
socially wise ways, so as neither to destroy individual initia- 
tive nor to block social progress. This perception has led 
some social thinkers of the present apparently to endorse 
the idea that government and law will ultimately absorb and 
direct all social activities. Such an extension of the func- 
tions of government would, however, be impracticable, and 
would probably be dangerous, even if practicable, because 
it would overcentralize the system of social control. How 
far government and law should go in the direction and con- 
trol of social activities depends upon circumstances. The 
only safe rule to follow is that of the demands of public 
welfare. 

It is evident that one of the great practical problems of 
modern civilization is how to increase the efficiency of gov- 
ernment and law as regulative agencies. This problem is 
far from solved even in countries the most advanced po- 
litically. The best of modern governments can scarcely be 
said to be adapted to the work of securing a high degree 
of social order, welfare, and justice among the conflicting 
elements of our complex industrial communities. The New 


SOCIAL ORDER 399 


World especially has lost, in part, its tradition of the place 
and importance of government and law in the social life; 
and we sometimes say that its trend has been toward law- 
lessness. The nations of Europe, on the other hand, may 
seem in some cases to have exaggerated the importance of 
government and law; but their governments have often been 
autocratic, and are far from efficient as organs of social 
justice, to say nothing of social progress. 

On account of the tendency of all social groups to be ego- 
istic and to regard themselves as ends in themselves, gov- 
ernments may easily be developed so as to be inimical to 
the establishment of harmony between the classes within the 
nation, or of a harmonious world order among the nations. 
For governments may champion the selfish interests of one 
class at the expense of others, or of one nation at the ex- 
pense of humanity. But as we have tried to show, this need 
not necessarily be so. Government need not be the triumph 
of the selfishness of one class over the selfishness of another, 
As an organ of social adjustment for the whole group, it 
stands in its essence above the contentions of individuals 
and classes. Its very function is to bring about a just and 
harmonious adjustment among these. 

Nor need the government of any particular nation be op- 
_ posed to the establishment of a harmonious world order. It 
is a psycho-social principle that loyalty to one group need 
not weaken, but may rather strengthen, loyalty to a greater 
group of which the smaller group is a part. Thus, loyalty 
to the government within the nation may be entirely con- 
sistent with loyalty to humanity, if the national government 
be made to serve the wider life of humanity. It must be ad- 
mitted, however, that in democratic nations a government 
above mere class or national egoism is possible only on the 
condition that the individual citizens are dominated by ideals 
of intelligent patriotism and of the service of mankind rather 
than by mere selfish class or national interests. It is ap- 


400 PSYCHOLOGY OP“ HUMAN SOCIETY 


parent, therefore, that ideal government must be built up 
through agencies other than government itself. 

On account of the tendency of governments to become the 
representatives of selfish class or national interests, some 
have advocated the idea that government and law will be 
dispensed with when social evolution becomes sufficiently 
advanced. It is said that they are only necessary evils, and 
are impediments to the unity and welfare of all mankind. 
This is the doctrine known as “anarchism.” Is this an- 
archistic ideal of no government as a social goal the one to 
which our knowledge of social evolution points? This ques- 
tion was often answered affirmatively in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, even by those who did not call themselves anarchists. 
Such an answer, however, shows an utter misunderstanding 
of the nature of human social life and of the trend of social 
evolution. Government and law instead of being less needed 
in the future will become more needed, even though social 
progress continues and the development of individual char- 
acter keeps pace. For the more complex adjustments re- 
quired in social life as social evolution advances need increas- 
ingly efficient means of control over individual and group 
behavior, if social order in our human world is to be pre- 
served. This is why we favor an extension of the functions 
of government further than our forefathers deemed wise. 
The whole view of the functions of government which mod- 
ern sociology has developed leads, as we have pointed out, 
to the welfare conception of government and law; and social 
welfare is bound to become an increasing concern as social 
evolution advances. 

Yet government and law by themselves are inadequate 
means of social control. The control which they can effec- 
tively exert must be largely over overt or external acts. It 
is unwise to use government and law to control the attitudes, 
motives, beliefs, and intentions of individuals, and all at- 
tempts of governments in the past to control these effectively 


——— 


SOCIAL ORDER 401 


have ended, as we have seen, in social disaster, because such 
attempts lead to the undue repression of individual liberty. 
Government and law alone do not, and can not, go deep 
enough to secure the highest type of social order, or indeed 
any type which is adequate for the social life of the present. 
Their control is too crude and external, too late in beginning 
with the individual, and too intermittent in its pressure upon 
him. Hence all governments have sought the aid of religion 
and education to supplement their efforts in securing social 
order. Because of the relatively external nature of gov- 
ernment and law, they are effective as means of social control 
largely in proportion as they support, and are supported by, 
religion, morality, and education. Probably the chief sup- 
port of democratic government is education; hence the chief 
function of democratic government should be to support 
education. 


Religion as a Means of Social Control 


Government and law fail as means of social control be- 
cause they fail to reach the springs of human action; they 
fail to socialize the motives of individuals. Evidently hu- 
man groups need a means of bringing their values and stand- 
ards to the consciousness of the individual in the most intense 


_ way, if they are to control the behavior of the individual 


effectively. This means of control human groups have 
found in religion, because it adds a supernatural sanction 
to the patterns of conduct sanctioned by the group. These 
patterns become, when sanctioned by religion, not only social 
patterns, but divine ideals or commands. Thus they are im. 
pressed upon the individual consciousness in the most in. 
tense way, and hence become a powerful means of social 
control. As many able writers on religious psychology have 
shown, religion is essentially an idealization of social values 
and a projection of them into the universe. Thus it gives 
social values not only a character of universal and absolute 


402 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


validity, but also a meaning and sanction which make them 
more effectual in controlling social behavior. 

Negatively religion presents itself as a form of social con- 
straint. In its earlier development it especially associates 
itself with all the “taboos” or prohibitions of the social group, 
or of its dominant class. It invokes the fear of supernatural 
agencies who will punish the violators of these prohibitions. 
It, therefore, creates an imaginary environment which con- 
strains the behavior of the individuals. Religion is thus a 
method of reinforcing habits of action which have been 
found to be safe by the group, or which are believed to con- 
duce to the group welfare. It is a powerful support, there- 
fore, of social order, but at the same time, it can be easily 
exploited by a dominant class in its own interests. This 
conservative aspect of religion has been perceived and em- 
phasized by so many writers that some have tended to ignore 
its other social aspects. But despite the fact that it must 
be acknowledged that religion has often been made an im- 
pediment to progress and an instrument of class oppres- 
sion, this conservative aspect of religion has led some writers, 
even those of strong antireligious bias, to find in it, though 
uncritically, the analogue of instinct in the animal world or 
of gravitation in the physical world. In any case, religion 
even in its lower phases manifests itself as a harmonizing 
and order-preserving element in human groups; and it does 
not lose this essential trait even in its highest developments. 

But it is a mistake to think of religion mainly in terms of 
its static or conservative aspects. Progressive religions are 
exceedingly rare in human history, taking it as a whole; but 
there is no necessity for religion being opposed to progress 
in the higher stages of cultural evolution. It may, indeed, 
become a chief stimulus to progress. The values which re- 
ligion sanctions can as easily be those not realized as those 
which are customary. It can as easily attach its sanction 
to ideals and attitudes which are progressive as to those which 


SOCIAL ORDER 403 


are static.1 The higher forms of religion, the ethically ideal- 
istic religions, become instruments of social order in a higher 
sense than merely sanctioning an existing order. They at- 
tach their sanction to moral and social ideals beyond the ex- 
isting order of things. 

There is, therefore, an intimate connection between the 
higher types of religion and social idealism. This is shown 
sociologically in many ways. The higher religions have, for 
the most part, taken their ideals from the family life; and 
we have seen that primary social and moral ideals in gen- 
eral come from the primary groups, such as the family. In 
general, as we have said, religion is an idealization of the 
higher social values of human groups. If the values of the 
group are conservative, then, of course, its religion be- 
comes conservative, even to the extent of becoming a 
stumbling block to progress. If, on the other hand, the 
social values of a community are progressive, then its re- 
ligion, too, will become an instrument of progressive social 
order. Religion may not create progress, but it may greatly 
aid it by sanctioning it. Those religions which stimulate 
the altruistic impulses and feelings of the individual lay a 
foundation for social progress. They educate the will and 
the emotions so that they are brought into line with social 
intelligence. Thus they make possible higher types of social 
order in which the relations between individuals become more 
harmonious because they are more sympathetic. In pro- 
portion, therefore, as religion sanctions altruistic conduct on 
the part of the individual, in that degree it helps not only to 
harmonize the relations among the group, but also to secure 
the establishment of a just social order. It thus aids prog- 





1The old theory that religion is primarily based upon fear is, 
of course, an exploded myth in psychology. The higher religions 
are based much more upon gratitude, love, and compassion, and, as 
pointed out in the previous chapter, these are sentiments favorable 
to progress. 


404 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


ress. It is evident that if we wish to harmonize the relations 
of all individuals, classes, nations, and races, we must have 
a religion which will sanction those values which attach 
themselves to the life of humanity as a whole; that is, a 
humanitarian religion. Such a religion would be a power- | 
ful aid in promoting good will among men, and so in the 
establishment of an ideal world order. 

The higher religions are also favorable in other respects 
to social order. They give a fuller meaning to life and 
stimulate hope and courage; they also strengthen endurance 
in suffering and prevent social pessimism and degeneracy. | 
Religion is, therefore, intimately associated with the morale 
of a group. By strengthening loyalty to high social ideals 
religion not only promotes social idealism in the group, but 
also increases stability of character in the individual, which 
in turn makes for harmonious as well as stable relations 
among individuals. 

It is no part of the business of sociology to pass upon 
the truth or falsity of any religious belief; but as a science 
it cannot ignore the social effects of religion. Are these 
socially favorable effects which we have just pointed out 
only incidental, and can they be just as well secured by some 
other means of social control? So far as social psychology 
can discover, there is no substitute for religion as an instru- 
ment of social control. Man must have confidence in his 
world, he must have faith in the system of things, if he is to 
work harmoniously with that system. He must believe in 
the possibilities and the value of life, if his energies are to 
be fully released. He cannot believe that the universe is a 
“fool’s house” which will make his highest endeavors but 
foolishness in the end, without coming to despair of social 
idealism. He is under the psychological necessity, in other 
words, of projecting his values into the universe, and this, 
as we have said, is essentially the religious attitude of mind. 
But the values projected are social values, and when thus uni- 


SOCIAL ORDER 405 


versalized by religious feeling they come into consciousness 
again with reénforced validity and intensity. They thus be- 
come, as standards, more effective for the control of social 
action. It is no accident, therefore, that religion has been 
so intimately connected with social order throughout human 
history, even to the extent that the decay of religions has 
usually been associated with the decay of particular types of 
social order, 

The belief that society in the future will be able to do 
without religion rests, then, upon about as unsatisfactory 
a psychological and sociological basis as the belief that so- 
ciety will be able to do without government. Religion will 
become more necessary as social life becomes more complex, 
for the reason that there will be more necessity for social 
control; that is, greater need of reénforcing social values in 
just the way which religion does. One of the gravest and 
most disturbing signs in the social life of the present, there- 
fore, has been the decay of effective religious beliefs. 
Hence, too, one of the greatest practical needs of present 
social life from the standpoint of social order is a religion 
adapted to the requirements of modern life. Much has still 
to be done, evidently, to secure such a religion; for narrow 
ecclesiastical forms and religious beliefs which are predomi- 
nantly theological rather than ethical in their content are 
still the rule in the modern world. What is needed is a so- 
cialized religion, a “religion of humanity,” which will make 
the service of man the highest expression of religion. We 
need to get rid of medievalism and reactionary conserva- 
tism in our religion. The real business of religion is to 
create a righteous world. The higher forms of Christianity 
are developing in this direction. 

The church, as the concrete institutional expression of 
religious life, while often backward and socially inefficient, 
so far from being an outgrown institution in society, evidently 
has before it a field of social usefulness such as never ex- 


406 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


isted in any past stage of social development. As the or- 
ganized embodiment of the religious life of the people, it 
ought to be the public conservator and propagator of all ideal 
social values. This is its distinctive function. This means 
that it must become largely an educational institution, “an 
ethical culture society” in the best sense, an intimate group 
in which the highest ethical culture will be diffused to all who 
come within its influence. Until we get in every community 
a church which is thus efficient socially, we cannot expect 
to develop and maintain a high type of social order. 


Morality as a Means of Social Control 


As we have just implied, religion secures its social effects 
chiefly by giving a supernatural sanction to ethical standards 
and ideals. Like religion, morality goes to the innermost 
motives of the individual and secures social order through 
the socialization of his inner nature. In other words, it con- 
trols behavior at its source. No social order, so far as we 
know, has ever existed long in any human group without 
being based upon some accepted moral standards or code of 
the group. The group sanctions for conduct, which we have 
called the mores, are coextensive with human society. It 
is not difficult to understand why this is so. Proper moral 
ideals and proper moral practices, or virtues, are necessary 
for human beings to live together in harmonious relations, 
and if high enough standards in these could be realized, that 
would probably assure the harmonization of relations among 
individuals. What we call the moral is, indeed, nothing but 
the social raised to a more or less ideal plane. But moral 
ideals are often one thing and social practices another, and 
one of the constant problems before human society is how 
to get these two things to coincide. 

This was simple enough in the more primitive forms ad 
society; for the only morals which such groups knew were a 
sharing of customary standards. While we are still prone 


SOCIAL ORDER 407 


to identify moral standards with customary standards, yet 
on the whole, we now believe that morality is essentially a 
sharing of ideals. Hence, the discrepancy which arises in 
our society between social practices and our professed moral 
ideals. This conflict between our customary standards and 
our moral ideals is, of course, due to the fact, which we have 
already pointed out, that we are undergoing a transition 
from a lower to a higher stage of social evolution. The sig- 
nificance of our moral ideals is that they are largely patterns 
for social behavior and social relations not yet fully realized. 
We shall be able to make our moral ideals moral customs 
only when our present moral ideals are more fully accepted 
as patterns for social behavior. 

It would be a step in this direction if we could secure the 
general recognition of the fact that the virtues do bind men 
together in harmonious social living; that without justice, 
honesty, veracity, and loyalty, for example, there can never 
be anything in civilized human groups more than a shabby 
semblance of social order. Moral codes and standards, while 
they may seem to be largely negative and in the nature of 
social inhibitions, are nevertheless the positive basis upon 
which social order rests. Even the very fact that these codes 
and standards change from age to age proves to the social 
psychologist their intimate connection with social order; for 
this fact proves that they have to do with maintaining a given 
social order under given conditions. 

However, we sorely need a more progressive morality and 
moral standards than those which are prevalent among the 
mass of the people in modern civilization. As the social life 
becomes more complex higher types of morality are needed. 
Negative and repressive moral standards need to be replaced 
by positive, constructive ideals. The virtues that suffice for 
a population living under relatively simple conditions of life 
are rarely adequate under more complex conditions. Stand- 
ards of conduct have to be continually raised to secure the 


4088 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


higher types of social order needed as civilization advances. 
The problem is again how to secure a corresponding rise in 
the level of social practice in the group; for practice tends 
to lag behind standards. 3 

A step in securing correspondence between moral ideals 
and social practices is to be found in the universal recognition 
of the social nature and social importance of morality, espe- 
cially, as a means to social order. As long as our society 
countenances such doctrines as those of Nietzsche that moral- 
ity, especially altruistic morality, is an impediment to social 
progress, we must expect grave social disorders to result. 
The tendencies toward immoralism in the modern world are 
among the gravest signs of social decadence. Like all other 
forms of social control, morality, instead of being less needed 
as culture develops, is more needed. Only it must be a 
morality which keeps pace with the changed conditions of 
life, one which is progressive and not merely repressive and 
conservative. The ethical problem of the present is how to 
expand our narrow class, national, and racial standards into 
a morality which is truly humanitarian. To secure the rec- 
ognition of a completely universal morality, the principles 
of which shall be regarded as binding in all human relation- 
ships, and which shall put the claims of humanity above 
those of any minor group, is the first step toward ending 
the social disoftders of our present world. 


Humanitarian Ethics 


If only such a system of ethics is adequate to support our 
complex civilization, which ethical system among those popu- 
lar to-day accords best with the results of psychology and 
sociology? The ethics of pleasure, or the hedonistic system 
of morals, which would put the pleasure of the individual 
as the highest good of life, is very obviously antisocial and 
anarchistic in its effect upon society. It works toward in- 
dividual gratification and self-indulgence rather than toward 


nal ne emai ee 


SOCIAL ORDER 409 


social conservation and social achievement. It is, therefore, 
essentially destructive of social order. This has usually been 


seen by the more careful social thinkers. On the other hand, 


“self-culture” ethics, or the ethics of individual self-realiza- 
tion, has often been commended as in accord with the de- 
mands of social progress, But self-culture, or self-devel- 
opment, may easily become regardless of the welfare of 
others, and when it does so, it becomes as essentially anti- 
social and destructive of social order as hedonistic ethics. 
Moreover, self-development, as a practical moral ideal, has 
frequently worked in our civilization toward the exploitation 
of society for the benefit of special classes and privileged 
individuals. Any purely individualistic ideal of self-devel- 
opment must accordingly be condemned from the standpoint 
of social order. Both the hedonistic and self-culture ethics 
of the nineteenth century must be considered as inadequate 
to meet the needs of our complex civilization. 

It is evident that we need a system of ethics which will 
state the moral ideal in social terms. If humanity and its 
welfare is to become the unit for moral living, then the moral 
ideal must be pictured, not as a perfect individual, but as a 
perfect society consisting of all humanity. Such humani- 
tarian ethics will teach the individual to find his self-devel- 
opment and his happiness in the service of others, and it will 
forbid any individual, class, nation, or even race from re- 
garding itself as an end in itself apart from the rest of hu- 
manity. It is only such ethics which will tend to put an 
end to the series of endless conflicts between classes, nations, 
and races which the modern world is witnessing. 

Such a system of ethics would be both constructive and 
synthetic from the social point of view. It would be con- 
structive because it would tend to preserve and develop all 
the values connected with world-wide social order and prog- 
ress. It would be synthetic, because it includes all elements 
of permanent value in human life. It includes, for example, 


410 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the ideal of self-development, because the development of 
the individual in accordance with the requirements of a pro- 
gressive social life is the first condition for the realization 
of such a moral ideal. It also includes the happiness of the 
individual as a necessary element in the moral ideal, for the 
most harmonious social life can be secured only by the wid- 
est diffusion of happiness in human society. Thus, a hu- 
manitarian system of ethics, or the ethics which make the 
service of humanity the end sought by the moral life, is 
synthetic of all that is worth while in the hedonistic and 
self-culture ideals; but it avoids the social dangers inherent 
in those ideals because it emphasizes not self but humanity 
as the unit of the moral life. Such a system of ethics alone 
can secure that high development of sympathy, understand- 
ing, and altruistic behavior which is needed if harmonious 
relations among individuals, classes, and races are to be de- 
veloped and maintained. 

But systems of moral ideals and moral standards are im- 
portant in human society only in so far as they affect the 
character and the conduct of the individual. It is individual 
character of a high and stable type upon which an ideal social 
order must rest. We have now, therefore, the problem of 
considering how this high type of individual character can 
be produced. 


Education as a Means of Social Control 


The social character of the normal, adult, human individual 
is not a matter of heredity. It is a product of the psycho- 
social environment, and is formed mainly in the plastic 
periods of childhood and adolescence. The education of the 
young, therefore, furnishes the most subtle and the ultimate 
form of social control because it controls in the develop- 
ing individual the formation of habit, and so personal char- 
acter. Hence, education must be the chief means of social- 
izing the individual and the main reliance of civilized human 


SOCIAL ORDER A4II 


society in securing higher types of social order., If properly 
carried out, personal education should furnish to the de- 
veloping individual at the plastic period of life a controlled, 
artificial environment, especially a psycho-social environment 
of the proper ideas, standards, and values. It can, accord- 
ingly, mold individual character in almost any direction 
which heredity makes possible. It can secure more difficult 
forms of social adjustment than government, law, religious, 
or moral sanctions can secure by acting upon the adult in- 
dividual; for it secures social control through self-control, 
that is, through socializing the attitudes and values of the 
individual. It can, moreover, function more easily to secure 
a social order which is progressive than the other great 
means of social control; for government, law, religion, and 
moral codes tend to become static. So too, under certain 
conditions, do educational institutions; but in theory we can 
as easily educate for a social order higher than the one which 
exists as for any social order which exists. 

Of course, the education of the individual is given by more 
institutions than the school. The home and the church are 
also educational institutions of the utmost importance. But 
the formal education of the school is becoming more and 
more of central importance in the education of the young. 
Hence it is to the education of the school that we must 
look largely for the solution of the problem of social order. 
Obviously, the education which will bring about a high degree 
of social order must be something far different from the 
commercialized education which now prevails. It must be 
a thoroughly socialized education which will codperate with, 
and have the cooperation of, all the other agencies of order 
in our society. Government and law, religion and moral 
ideals must work through education to have their full social 
effect in sustaining social order. The school should, there- 
fore, in its education, work to conserve and develop these 
instruments of social order. Social education should not 


412 PSYCHOLOGY OP BOMAN "SUCHOEY 


be thought of as separate from these other means of social 
control. Rather it is simply a method by which the other 
means may be more successfully realized. ; 

Hence, a problem of social education is how the positive 
and constructive sides of government, law, religion, and 
morality may be made evident to the individual, and the in- 
dividual brought to codperate in a rational way with these 
agencies of social control. To some extent our education 
is undoubtedly doing this, but the problem would seem to 
be in the main still one to be solved. Education itself must 
become more popular among the masses; and at the same 
time it must popularize the work of government and law, 
of religion and morality. Education has too often become 
popular through giving up its character as a means of social 
control and appealing to the individual merely as a means 
of selfish success in life. But a socialized education must 
evidently attempt not only to give a social view of govern- 
ment and law, religion and morality, but also to bring 
these means of social control to their maximum state of 
efficiency. i 

Social education should teach the individual to regard these 
great civilizing agencies not so much as instruments of 
restraint as means of social development. As long as these 
agencies for social control remain in their present low state 
of development we cannot expect the realization of any high 
degree of social order. In every civilized nation they are 
as yet far from a rational stage of development. This is in 
part owing to social indifference and ignorance; but it also 
in part is due to the growth in modern civilization of negative 
doctrines regarding government and law, religion and 
morality. These doctrines have become widespread in our 
civilization largely through sociological ignorance, and are 
a real impediment to securing and maintaining a high type 
of social order. While such doctrines doubtless originated 
in the main from the abuses of government and law, re- 


SOCIAL ORDER AI3 


ligion and moral standards, yet it is time that scientific 
students of human society and scientific social education 
should unite in demonstrating to all that none of these 
agencies of social control can be dispensed with, and that, 
therefore, the only rational question is how we can secure 
the best development of these means of social control. Evi- 
dently only when social education concerns itself with bring- 
ing these agencies of social control to their highest state of 
social efficiency can we expect the realization of the highest 
state of social order. What is evidently needed is that 
institutions of social control should be more understood 
from the point of view of their social meaning and purpose; 
and to accomplish this should be one of the prime aims of 
social education, 


Like-Mindedness and Social Order 


Among social thinkers Professor Giddings has especially 
emphasized that a stable social order must rest upon like- 
mindedness, That he is essentially right in this view has 
been clearly implied in our discussions in previous chapters. 
Indeed, if social order of any sort is to be established in a 
group, there must be fundamental likenesses among its in- 
dividuals in the primal elements of human nature. There 
must also be fundamental likeness in acquired habits. There 
must also be sympathy and mutual understanding among all 
the members of the group. A natural, spontaneous social 
order, as we have already said, rests upon these fundamental 
psychic similarities in individuals. In the more complex 
human groups there must also be similarity and agreement 
with regard to the more fundamental standards and values 
of life. The higher types of social adjustments between in- 
dividuals, as we saw in Chapter V, rest upon and are 
mediated by codrdinating ideas and feelings. A stable social 
order of high type, therefore, necessitates a high degree of 
like-mindedness among the individuals of the group. 


414 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Yet there is a danger of exaggerating the importance of 
like-mindedness in social order. Differences as well as sim- 
ilarities among individuals are necessary and advantageous in 
complex groups, as Professor Giddings himself has fully 
recognized. Complementary differences, as we have seen, 
conduce to harmony of relationships among individuals. 
Without such differences we could have no division of labor 
and no complex organization in human groups. Moreover, 
if there were no differences in the beliefs and behavior of in- 
dividuals we should have no variation in the social life, 
and hence, as we have seen, no progress. There can be no 
question, therefore, as to the value of differences in ideas, 
ideals, standards, and behavior in the progressive societies 
of the modern world. We undoubtedly need to appreciate 
more the value of these differences and to be more tolerant 
of them; for they have value not only for social progress, 
but also for social order. 

However, these differences, if they are to work for social 
order, must be of such a sort that, they will fit together in an 
organic whole. This is what was meant when we said they 
must be complementary differences. It is undesirable from 
the standpoint of social order that individuals should be mere 
copies of each other in their personal character, if such a 
thing were possible. But there is an extreme social disad- 
vantage if there are too great differences between the in- 
dividuals of a group in their mental and moral make-up. 
There must be fundamental resemblances if there is to be 
harmonious coordination of their activities. When their 
standards and ideals of life are too far removed from each 
other, conflict in the resulting habits which these represent 
is inevitable. Moreover, when these conflicting standards 
and ideals relate to fundamental social conditions, there can 
be no doubt that their disharmony is certain to bring dis- 
harmony in the group and is opposed to the development and 
maintainance of any high type of social order. Comte was 


SOCIAL ORDER | 41s 


perhaps the first sociological writer to emphasize this fact. 
He pointed out that the social disorder of his time was 
largely to be attributed to the disagreements that existed in 
social life concerning fundamental things. Hence, he de- 
clared, “Stability in fundamental maxims is the first condi- 
tion of genuine social order.” 


The Conflict of Ideals 


With Comte we must say that stability in our institutions 
cannot be assured as long as the present conflict between 
ideals of life continues. People are now, not infrequently, 
utterly divided regarding the most fundamental values of 
our social life. In the main, however, there would seem 
to be only one safe method of bringing them into lasting 
agreement regarding the ideals of life; and that is through 
the development of our scientific knowledge regarding our 
social life. It is the task of social science to settle upon the 
basis of established knowledge the disagreements in opinions 
and beliefs among individuals. If there is no hope through 
science of bringing men to more unanimity and more genuine 
unity in their opinions regarding the values and ideals of 
life, then there is no hope of solving the problems of our 
civilization through science, and also no hope of any high, 
harmonious type of social order emerging from the strife 
of the present. 

Of course, in practice, science alone cannot bring about 
this desirable agreement among men with regard to the 
ideals and standards of life and conduct. The truths of 
science must be fostered and applied in the actual work of 
life by government, law, religion, morality, and education. 
Nevertheless, the work of science is the chief hope of all 
rational minds of establishing standards which will be ac- 
cepted by all because they rest upon established facts. In 
the long run, therefore, the work of social science should be 
supremely important in establishing order in human rela- 


416 PSY CHOLOGY) OF  EUM AN SO CTY: 


tions; and among the sciences dealing with human social 
life, the work of sociology is particularly important, because 
it deals with the most general and fundamental relations of 
individuals. When science in general fully recognizes that 
its social task is this work of correcting erroneous opinions 
and standards, and of synthesizing ideas and values so that 
the true view of human life shall emerge, we shall not lack 
sufficient like-mindedness in civilized society nor, ultimately, 
-a high and stable social order. 


Conflict and Social Order 


In recent years, a certain school of sociological writers 
have tended to make conflict a normal, if not an ideal, ele- 
ment in all social life. If nothing more is meant by conflict 
than the normal competition between individuals, interests, 
and ideals in the social life, there is little objection to this 
belief. Conflict of this sort is the natural condition of the 
selective process and is not inconsistent with social order 
of the highest type. It is a struggle for higher and more 
advantageous adjustments, and usually results in good both 
to the group and to the individual. There is an element of 
necessary conflict in ideas, tendencies, and behavior in all 
social change and adaptation, as we have seen. It is upon 
this basis of conflict, or competition, between individuals, 
ideas, standards, and habits that selection is made. Such 
competition in a group must be considered, therefore, a neces- 
sary method of progress in no sense opposed to social order. 
At its highest and best, it becomes a generous rivalry or 
emulation in the realization of the highest possible social 
values. 

But those who glorify conflict in human life do not mean 
this normal competition of life. The word is ambiguous, 
and the conflict school of sociologists seem to mean by it 
the primitive, unregulated struggle between individuals and 
groups—what we might more properly call “hostile conflict,” 


SOCIAL ORDER 417 


in which individuals or groups attempt to injure or to worst 
one another. Now conflict in this sense is not only opposed 
to social order, but is the antithesis of social order, because 
there can be no harmonious relations between individuals or 
groups when conflict of this kind exists. We have already 
pointed out that conflict of this kind is abnormal in the life 
of a group,” marking the breakdown of normal social adapta- 
tion and reversion to a primitive, brutelike level. Such 
hostile conflict, to be sure, may result in social order, and 
even in social order of a higher type, through the elimination 
of lower types of groups or individuals. This fact may be 
conceded; but it should not obscure the further fact that 
this is a primitive method of securing order which modern 
civilized societies might advantageously dispense with. It 
is a brutal and unnecessary method, because the socializing 
and civilizing agencies of the present may secure rational 
social adjustment of groups and individuals without resort 
to such means. Brutal and unregulated forms of conflict 
are destructive to higher culture and therefore should not 
be tolerated within the pale of civilization. They usually 
defeat the very ends for which they are employed, because 
they are apt to prove so destructive to the finer social senti- 
ments and to the higher social values that they result in 
more or less reversion toward the social forms of barbarism. 
Force, and especially violence, is impotent to establish har- 
mony in our human world. There is, therefore, little hope of 
social order of the higher type issuing from hostile conflicts. 
This is true of any form of unregulated struggle or conflict 
in society, whether between individuals or groups. The 
process of civilization has been a continual replacement of 
unregulated forms of struggle or competition by regulated, 
socialized, moralized forms. 


2 See Chap. V. 





418 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY, 


The Problem of World Order 


The problem which especially confronts our civilization — 
is whether it can replace the lower, unregulated, brutal forms 
of struggle between human groups by the higher, regulated, 
moralized forms of competition. As long as war between 
nations lasts, and even as long as settled antagonism and 
hatred between classes and races continues to exist, there 
can be little ground for hoping for the establishment of any 
high and stable social order. The attitude of hostile con- 
flict is a negative and destructive element in human rela- 
tions. It is a sign of dissociation or of social dissolution, 
Accordingly, one of the greatest tasks before our civiliza- 
tion is to put an end to the lower and more brutal forms 
of conflict and competition between individuals, classes, na- 
tions, and races and to establish peace and harmony among 
them, and cooperation in the work of life. 

How can this be done? The development of rationality and 
good will in individuals is obviously not sufficient, because 
there is no assurance that such-individual rationality and good 
will will express itself in group behavior. Moreover, if 
such a development is wholly individual there is no guar- 
antee of its persistence. To become effective for social order 
good will and rationality must be organized into human in- 
stitutions. All human communities have found this to be 
necessary in establishing any sort of social order. If we 
wish world-wide social order, we may reasonably conclude 
that the same principle will hold true. The good will that 
exists among the individuals of civilized nations must be- 

, come organized if it is to become effective for world-wide 
‘peace and order. Unorganized good will is no more effective 
in human society than any other form of unorganized power. 
A world order presupposes, therefore, some organization 
among the civilized nations. If we wish to prevent war, we 
must have the forces to prevent hostile conflict so organized 


SOCIAL ORDER 419 


that they may become effective in controlling the behavior 
of nations. We must find a way to substitute law for war. 

Within the nation and the state, and even within every 
community, there is also need of more organization of good 
will if social conflicts between classes are to be avoided and 
social cooperation assured. While this organization may 
be achieved perhaps in part through voluntary agencies, it 
would seem more economic and efficient to make it largely 
a public matter and to use the agencies of social control 
already in existence to organize this good will; that is, the 
agencies of government and law, the school and the church. 
We come, therefore, again to the conclusion that these 
agencies of social control must be perfected before we can 
achieve any high degree of social order, and that social 
order in higher civilization is quite entirely dependent upon 
the organization and efficiency of these agencies of social 
control. Until these agencies are perfected the world cannot 
hope to escape from its present disorder. We cannot, at 
any rate, get world order from conflict, nor any stable and 
lasting order through force. Such order can come only 
through the understanding, the agreement, and through the 
established opinions, sentiments, aims, and organized co- 
operation of all the nations. To this end, if it is to be 
realized, government and law, education and religion, must 
each make its contribution. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Cootry, Social Process, Chaps. XIV, XXXII. 

Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, Part IV. 

BLACKMAR and GILLINn, Outlines of Sociology, pp. 380-429. 

Bocarnus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Chaps. XX VIII- 
XXXI. 

BraANnForp and Geppes, The Coming Polity, Part III. 

BusHEE, Principles of Sociology, Part V. 

Cootry, Social Organization, Chaps. XXXIV-XXXVI. 

Dewey, Democracy and Education, Chaps. II-VIII. 


420°. (PSYCHOLOGY (OF sHUMAN SOGIEDY 


Dewey and Turts, Ethics, Chaps. XX-XXVI. 

Exttwoop, The Social Problem, Chaps. V, VI; The Reconstruc- 
tion of Religion, Chap. II; Delia and Social Science, 
Chaps. III-VI. | 

Fotitett, The New State, Part III. 

Gippincs, Elements of Sociology, Chaps. XIX, XXIV. 

GinsBerG, The Psychology of Society, Chap. XI. 

Hayes, Introduction to the Study of Sociology, Chap. XXXI; 
Sociology and Ethics, Chaps. X, XI. 

Hosnouse, Morals in Evolution, Vol. I, Chaps. III-VIII; 
Social Evolution and Political Theory, Chaps. VI, VIII, 
IX; Elements of Social Justice, Chaps. IV-XI. 

HupparpD, The Fate of Empires. 

Kine, Education for Social Efficiency, Chaps. II-VI. 

LeuBa, Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 326-336. 

MeEckuINn, Introduction to Social Ethics, Part III. 

Novicow, Mecanisme et Limites de l Association humaine. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chap. XII. 

Patrick, The Psychology of Social Reconstruction, Chap. VII. 

Rivers, Psychology and Politics. 

Ross, Social Control; Sin and Society. 

Sims, Society and Its Surplus, Chap. IX. 

Wattas, The Great Society, Chaps. XII, XIII. 

WeEEks, The Control of the Social Mind. 

WitiLoucnusy, The Nature of the State, Chap. XII. 


CHAPTER XIV 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 


The Problem of Social Progress 


Social progress is not strictly synonymous with social 
evolution or social change. Progress implies an amelioration 
of the conditions of human life. A theory of social progress 
is, therefore, beyond the limits of strictly pure science, since 
such a theory looks to the practical. The theory of progress 
is as much ethical as sociological, and perhaps the sociologist 
must leave to ethics the final determination of what social 
progress is. 

But the social sciences have certainly much to do before 
ethics can construct the final norms for determining progress. 
‘The differences between various types of social change, the 
factors that work in each, the possibility of their control, 
the nature and consequences of such changes, will have to 
be determined largely by sociologists before ethics can set 
up its norms of progress. As we have repeatedly pointed 
out, there is no valid reason for any absolute separation of 
the work of the various social sciences when it comes to these 
points where their work naturally and logically overlaps. 
We have seen that the ultimate motive for the development 
of all science is practical, to give man control over the 
experience of life. Sociology and social psychology must 
become ethical, that is, they must have a forward and 
practical look, if they are to be useful. 

What light can they shed upon the social changes of the 
future, upon the direction of those changes, and upon means 
of controlling them? In particular, what is the relative im- 

421 


422 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


portance of the human and the nonhuman factors in bringing 
about social changes which we judge progressive? Can the 
human dominate the nonhuman elements, so that man’s | 
social destiny may be said to be, to some extent at least, in 
his own hands? That is, can social progress be rationally 
planned and scientifically controlled? Are human culture 
and human society modifiable through “taking thought’? 
If sociology cannot give some sort of scientific insight into 
these questions, it is certainly, as Ward long ago insisted, 
the most useless of all sciences; for why should we study 
social changes unless for the sake of controlling them? And 
why should we seek to control social evolution unless we 
can get some relatively definite scientific criterion as to the 
direction which it should take? 

It is hardly necessary to tell the student that this book 
has been an endeavor to furnish a scientific basis for answers 
to these questions. We have tried to show that sociology 
is vitally related to human life and destiny, and that this is 
particularly true of its psychological phases. Practically all 
that has been said, therefore, has a bearing upon the theory 
of social progress. We have tried to show how the founda- 
tion for man’s social progress was laid by organic evolution, 
especially in his superior capacity’ for intelligent behavior. 
We have seen also that the native impulses and feelings of 
the individual, especially the so-called altruistic impulses and 
feelings, have been indispensable conditions of social progress. 
We have seen how man’s power to learn, how the slow 
accumulation of knowledge, standards, and values, has been 
the basis for each successive advance of culture; how imita- 
tion has served to diffuse and generalize inventions through- 
out mankind; how the expansion of the consciousness of 
kind and of sympathetic feeling have made possible wider 
and more harmonious adaptations among individuals and 
groups. Our whole theory of social progress must, there- 
fore, be sought in all the preceding chapters. Nevertheless, 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 423 


there remain certain conceptions to clear up and certain gen- 
eralizations which need to be drawn in order to make clear 
our theory of social progress, 


The Nature of Social Progress 


We shall attempt no formal definition of social progress. 
Professor Hobhouse has said that social progress means 
“the growth of social life in respect of those qualities to which 
human beings attach or can rationally attach value.”+ But 
what social changes do we attach value to, or should we attach 
value to? For one thing we attach value to changes which 
bring increasing control over life and its conditions. Me- 
chanical inventions, economic prosperity, increased skill in 
combating disease are considered marks of progress because 
they give man greater control over physical nature and 
enable him to adjust himself better to his environment. Dis- 
coveries within the realm of physical science are for the 
same reason usually regarded as marking progress. But 
we also call changes in political conditions and in social 
standards which enable us better to control and harmonize 
relationships between individuals and groups indications of 
progress. They aid man to control the social conditions of 
his life. New means of cooperation, new forms of associa- 
tion which better harmonize the interests of individuals and 
reduce conflict among them, new knowledge of human nature 
or of ways of living together, are regarded as indications of 
progress because they mean increasing control by man over 
himself and his social relationships. 

We must define social progress, accordingly, in terms of 
social control.2. This perception enables us to see that social 
progress is not opposed to social order. Social order, also, 
we saw, is an outcome of social control, and is, of course, a 





1 Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, p. 8. 
2Compare Professor Faris’s statement, quoted by Park and Bur- 
gess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 2d edition, p. 961. 


424. PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


condition of progress. The control which we call progress, 
however, is of two sorts; first, control over physical nature, 
and, second, control over human nature and human 
behavior. These two sorts of control are not rigidly 
to be separated from one another. The control over 
physical nature we usually call material civilization, while 
the control over human nature and human conduct we call 
moral civilization. This correlation of progress with civiliza- 
tion, or culture, brings forcibly to our attention the fact 
that all that we call social progress in human groups is 
really cultural progress of one sort or another. When 
we see that social progress is, essentially cultural progress 
we can scarcely remain skeptical as to its reality, and it will 
not perhaps be difficult to understand its exact nature. 

For all culture has been a development by man of means 
of control over physical nature and over human behavior. 
Culture is the double mastery of man over physical nature 
and over himself. On the physical side it has moved from 
the making of the simplest tools to the most complex me- 
chanical devices of our present civilization. On the social 
side it has moved from the purely animal or instinctive form 
of association to the most elaborately devised social and 
political systems. All this movement in culture has meant 
greater control by man over his physical and social environ- 
ment. It has given him, therefore, greater capacity to sur- 
vive, greater efficiency in the tasks of life, and finally, it 
has made possible greater harmony in the relations of in- 
dividuals and of groups. Progress must be defined in terms 
of control, but it is control having a certain direction; namely, 
the increasing of men’s capacity to survive, the increasing of 
their efficiency in achievement, and the increasing of harmony 
in their relations with one another. Perhaps these three 
tests of social progress are as good as can be devised; namely, 
increased capacity to survive on the part of individuals and 
groups, increased efficiency in work of both individuals and 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 425 


groups, and increased harmony among individuals and 
groups in their relations with one another. In brief, social 
progress is control over physical and human nature, which 
increases rather than subtracts from the sum of human 
values. 

Many other marks or tests of social progress have been 
proposed by sociological writers. Some sociological writers 
of the nineteenth century gave an entirely subjective defini- 
tion of social progress. They claimed that it might be ade- 
quately defined in terms of the increase of the human hap- 
piness; that it consists essentially in passage from a state 
of social hardship, fear, and discomfort to a condition in 
which comfort and happiness are generally diffused through- 
out society; or, as others phrased it, in passage from a “pain- 
economy” to a “pleasure-economy.” * We would not deny 
that true social progress must work ultimately for the in- 
creased happiness of mankind. But such a subjective crite- 
rion of progress cannot be accepted, as increased general hap- 
piness is at most only one element in social progress. 
Popularly, of course, such a hedonistic criterion of social 
progress appeals to the unthinking; but from the general 
theory of feeling which we have presented, it is evident 
that an increase of happiness in social life can be regarded 
scientifically only as an accompaniment or outcome of the 
processes which make for progress, but not as a certain 
criterion of progress, 

Other sociological writers have proposed objective tests 
of progress. Some have made the chief criterion of social 
progress increased complexity of social organization. But 
it is doubtful if increased complexity of social structure has 
any close connection with progressive social change. It is 
entirely conceivable that complexity of social structure might 
increase without increased rational control over the condi- 


3 Compare Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, p. 161, and Patten, 
Theory of Social Forces, Chaps. IV, V. 


426 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


tions of life; that is, with decrease in the capacity for sur- 
vival, in social efficiency, and in social harmony. Such a 
purely morphological conception of social progress is not 
adequate for scientific purposes, even though we acknowl- 
edge that increasing complexity of social organization has 
in general marked the changes which we call progressive. 
Other sociological writers have claimed that social progress 
consists in the increase of the division of labor and of in- 
terdependence in the social life; but the criticism which we 
have just made of the conception of progress as increased 
complexity of social structure applies in principle also to 
this conception. 

More scientific are the concrete tests for social progress 
which have been proposed by Professor Todd.* He pro- 
poses a variety of criteria of progress, such as an expansion 
of the numbers of men; increasing health and longevity; 
increasing wealth; greater emphasis upon intellectual values; 
wider participation in all material and intellectual gains; 
wider concepts of truth; greater liberty, greater order, and 
finally, greater solidarity in-mankind as a whole. ‘These 
concrete tests are of undeniable value, but they surely can 
be reduced, as we have already said, to two: increased con- 
trol over physical nature and increased control over human 
nature and human relations, such as will increase the sum 
total of human values. Since all social progress is cultural, 
it is in the nature of collective achievement in these two 
directions. It means a better adaptation of social groups 
to the requirements of their existence, whether the condi- 
tions to be met are physical or social. Hence, social prog- 
ress means better adjustment of all factors in the life of a 
group, whether internal or external, to a wider, more uni- 
versal environment. It means increasing rational control 
over all the conditions of life. The conception which we 
finally come to is this: social progress is increasing rational 


4Todd, Theories of Social Progress, Chap. VII. 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 427 


control over all of the conditions of social existence, whether 
these are internal or external, resulting in greater capacity 
for survival on the part of individuals and groups, in greater 
efficiency in performing the tasks of life, and in greater har- 
mony among individuals and groups in their relations with 
one another. 

It is evident from this provisional definition of social prog- 
ress that the ultimate subject of progress must be humanity 
as a whole rather than smaller social groups, because if the 
relations between the various groups which make up human- 
ity are not harmonized, if humanity as a whole does not show 
more mastery over itself and its environment, social progress 
will defeat itself. In other words, social progress cannot 
be permanent unless the results of progress are gradually 
diffused throughout humanity. Social progress requires bet- 
ter adaptation to a universal environment, and this means 
that humanity must be its subject. This is not saying, of 
course, that relative social progress may not take place within 
smaller social groups, but only that it will be unstable unless 
it is shared ultimately by the largest possible human group, 
humanity. This matter we shall discuss further in the last 
chapter of this book. 

It is also evident from our definition that social progress 
to be permanent must be well-balanced. If there is lack of 
control over some of the conditions of existence, this lack 
of control is bound, sooner or later, to affect the control 
achieved along other lines, For example, our control over 
physical nature cannot be permanent if we do not achieve 
control over human behavior and human relations. This is 
perhaps a sufficient answer to those who say that there is 
no such thing as general social progress, but that there is 
only progress along certain lines and in certain directions. 
This may be true for a time, but human culture must move 
as a whole if it is to remain well-balanced. One-sided or 
unilateral progress, sooner or later, is bound to defeat itself. 


428 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


All progress must, of course, be in concrete lines and in spe- 
cific directions; but the general level of culture and of social 
well-being as a whole must be raised, sooner or later, if. 
the whole social life is not to be thrown out of equilibrium. 
It is ill-balanced progress which proves an illusion. 

If we accept provisionally this conception of progress in 
terms of man’s control over himself and over physical nature, 
for the positive increase of social well-being, then certain 
questions remain: What causes social progress? What fac- 
tors determine that social changes shall be progressive rather 
than retrogressive in their nature? How may these factors 
be controlled? These questions have been discussed to some 
extent by nearly every social thinker from the time of Plato 
down to the present. Nearly every possible theory of social 
progress has been set forth, but most of these theories have 
been what we might call unilateral, that is, they have been 
based upon the perception of some single factor at work in 
progressive social changes. We cannot review all of these 
theories, but it is necessary to pass some of them briefly in 
review before attempting to set forth a sociological theory 
of progress. 


The Anthropo-Geographical Theory of Progress 


Certain social thinkers have found the causes of human 
progress in certain favorable conditions, or in crises, in the 
natural physical environment, such as in the conditions of 
climate, soil, food, topography, and the general aspects of 
physical nature. Perhaps no one has ever believed that these 
geographical conditions are adequate alone to explain human 
progress; but certain thinkers would make these conditions 
preponderant or determining in social progress. 

Buckle, in his History of Civilization in England, gave a 
classical expression to this view. He endeavored to show 
that indirectly geographical conditions operating through 
economic conditions would determine social progress. The 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 429 


geographical conditions in Europe have been favorable for 
man’s mastery of physical nature, he argued, and so have 
been the prime factors in the development of the European 
civilization. For that reason, he thought, no high develop- 
ment of civilization which would be permanent could be 
expected outside of Europe. Other writers of this same 
general school have held that climatic conditions which stimu- 
late the energies of man, such as are found in Europe and 
in parts of North America, are the prime causes of social 
progress; or that the conditions of food supply in relation 
to men’s needs determine social progress. Food supply, these 
writers say, is the immediate stimulus which gives rise, 
through the efforts made to control it, to invention and dis- 
covery and all control over nature and human relations. 
Food supply, moreover, determines the size of the social 
group, and this determines its culture. The equation of 
food and population offers, therefore, these writers say, when 
its full reactions upon the social life of man have been ex- 
amined, the explanation of the really significant movements 
in human history. | 

That favorable conditions, and also crises, in man’s nat- 
ural physical environment do play a part in his social and 
cultural development, there can be no doubt, and in Chapter 
II we tried to point out briefly, but carefully, just what their 
part is in the social life-process. But a geographical theory 
of social progress is too simple to show all of the active fac- 
tors that work in that process. If it were an adequate ex- 
planation, geographical conditions should make progressive 
societies out of animal groups. Social progress does not 
always take place when physical conditions are favorable, 
nor have the most favorable physical conditions in the past 
prevented social retrogression. The civilization of Greece 
and Rome went down, although geographic conditions did 
not appreciably change. The truth is that geographical con- 
ditions are only conditions, and not causes, of social progress, 


430 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Physical nature furnishes the materials and perhaps, to some 
extent, the stimulus for progress; but the real causes must 
be sought in man himself. Physical nature is static; but 
culture and social life are dynamic. Cultures are often rad- 
ically changed without appreciable changes in the physical 
environment, or at least in geographic conditions; on the 
other hand, geographic conditions are often changed through 
the migration of peoples without appreciable changes in their 
culture. 

In conclusion, we can say that the geographical deter- 
minists, in general, have failed to show any definite and cer- 
tain connection between changes in climatic and geographical 
conditions and well-known historical social changes. In the 
early history of human society the influence of geographic 
conditions upon social and cultural changes appears to have 
been more marked; and throughout human history, as we 
have already pointed out, both favorable conditions and crises 
have played a large part in the development of human civi- 
lization because they have acted as stimuli to human be- 
havior. There can be no doubt that the natural physical 
environment through selection, habituation, and stimulation 
has been a very large factor in human social evolution, and 
that it has furnished the framework within which that proc- 
ess has taken place; but in itself, it is quite inadequate to 
explain social progress, 


The Biological or Racial Theory of Progress 


Many social thinkers have held that the determining fac- 
tor in social progress in human groups is that of race or 
biological constitution. Quite evidently the geographical 
theory neglects this internal factor of blood or heredity. 
From the standpoint of biology this theory evidently has a 
great advantage. For modern biology explains the differ- 
ence in the life of various species of animals mainly through 
their biological constitutions. Why should not this theory 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 431 


then explain quite adequately the difference in the life and 
culture of various human groups? 

From all that we know about biology it would seem cer- 
tain that racial heredity is a factor in social evolution; and 
that even the biological peculiarities of individuals enter 
very largely into social reactions. This we pointed out in 
Chapter II, and we may acknowledge that without sound 
physical heredity there would be but little hope of continuing 
human progress. We cannot admit, however, from our sci- 
entific evidence that the advocates of the biological theory 
of a social life are right, when they claim that the quality 
of civilization is entirely determined by the matter of breed 
or race. 

Even if we admit the very large importance of individual 
and racial heredity, biological nature is inadequate to ex- 
plain social progress, because, as we have repeatedly pointed 
out, human groups have so much in their collective life 
which does not come to them in a biological way. We have 
seen that so much is acquired by each individual in his life- 
time, that all that we call culture is thus acquired, and that 
social tradition plays such a large part in passing along the 
possessions and the achievements of the past that the bio- 
logical constitution of the individual does nothing more than 
furnish the potentialities of social and cultural progress. 
The human child is born a savage, or perhaps, we might say, 
a mere animal. All that he does in the way of distinctively 
human development, so far as his behavior is concerned, is 
a matter of individual acquirement. His biological consti- 
tution furnishes him only the basis upon which his social and 
cultural progress takes place. Doubtless this foundation 
must be sound if a sound superstructure is to be reared; 
but racial progress and social progress are two very differ- 
ent things. 

This becomes plain enough when we compare the con- 
dition of European society to-day with its condition four 


432 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


thousand years ago. So far as we know, the biological con- 
stitution of the European peoples four thousand years ago 
was not different from what it is to-day, except that the 
heredity of the various stocks was then probably somewhat 
sounder. During the four thousand years the social prog- 
ress of Europe has been enormous; but we have no right to 
speak of any corresponding racial or biological progress. 
The physical constitution of our early European ancestors 
evidently furnished the potentiality of social progress; but 
as it has not changed appreciably within that period, it can- 
not be regarded as the active factor in the many progressive 
and retrogressive social changes that have taken place in 
Europe during the last two or three millenniums. 

It is evident that race like geographic environment is 
static, while human society is dynamic. If neither race nor 
geographic environment is sufficient to explain social prog- 
ress when taken alone, may they not be adequate when taken 
together? May we not say that the races of men are like 
trees, each bringing forth its fruit, in the form of a par- 
ticular culture, in due season in accordance with its nature 
and environment? Such a statement shows a psychological 
and sociological misunderstanding of the whole nature of 
social progress. It implies a simple organic conception of 
the social life, rather than a psychological and cultural con- 
ception. As we have just pointed out, race and geographic 
environment are among the most static and unchanging fac- 
tors in the social life. They are conditions rather than 
causes of social progress. They furnish potentialities rather 
than active factors in social progress. Both psychologically 
and sociologically there is no evidence to sustain the belief 
that culture and social progress are the result of the cowork- 
ing of merely two factors, race and geographic environment, 
though we may admit that they are most important among 
the original physical conditions. : 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 433 


The Economic Theory of Progress 


Among the most popular theories of social progress with 
historians and social scientists at the present time is the 
theory that social progress depends upon economic conditions, 
that is, upon the system of industry and technology, of the 
production and distribution of material goods, at a given 
fime. In many circles of social thought of the present time 
this theory is the dominant one, not only of social progress, 
but also of social evolution. Its popularity is largely due to 
that vague, popular belief which identifies economic pros- 
perity with social progress; but its spread and acceptance 
have been largely due to its advocacy by the Marxian social- 
ists under the name of “the materialistic conception of his- 
tory,’ though they have been aided not a little by the work 
of certain economists who have advocated the same theory 
under the name of “the economic interpretation of history.” 

The original statement of the theory, in the words of 
Marx, was that “the method of production of the material 
life determines the social, political, and spiritual life-process 
in general.” ® ‘With Marx, the theory was essentially one 
of the determination of consciousness and of human behavior 
by the material conditions of life. The methods by which 
the means of subsistence were produced and distributed in 
society, he argued, would in the end determine the ideals and 
standards of the general social life. Hence, all other social 
processes are dominated eventually by the economic process. 
For example, government and law, religion and morality are 
only superstructures growing out of economic conditions, 
and in the long run will change with these conditions. Ac- 
cordingly, social progress is determined by the methods of 
getting a living, of producing and distributing wealth. In 
the hands of Marx and his followers this doctrine was con- 


5 Marx, Critique of Political Economy, Author’s Preface, p. 11 
(translation by Stone). 


434 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


verted into an instrument of revolution; for the practical 
inference which they drew from the doctrine was, of course, 
that if economic conditions are made right, other social con- 
ditions will spontaneously right themselves. This is the — 
form in which the theory is popularly held, for as we have 
pointed out, there is a strong tendency in our society to 
identify economic prosperity with social progress, or at least 
to believe that social progress will take care of itself if eco- 
nomic prosperity is diffused to the masses. The masses also 
believe uncritically that a just economic order which will 
assure an economic surplus to every one will be a sufficient 
guarantee of human progress. Some scientific social think- 
ers, who should be more critical, apparently agree to these 
propositions. 

In recent years this economic determinism, as we may 
rightly call this view of human society, has been combined 
with the Darwinian theory. It is said that all of man’s 
progress must come in a form of adjustment to his material 
environment, and that as a matter of fact the material en- 
vironment to which he adjusts himself at the present time, 
so far as it is not merely geographic, is economic. Our sys- 
tem of industry and its technology, in other words, furnish 
the environment to which adjustment must be made by in- 
dividuals and groups. Selection, whether natural or rational, 
it is said, must work upon the basis of this environment. 
There may be variations; but in the long run social life and 
culture must conform to its material basis, and this material 
basis is the economic system. Thus economic determinism 
issues with a new dress, clothed, so to speak, in the robes 
of the Darwinian theory, and proclaiming that the norm to 
which social adjustment must be made is that of the eco- 
nomic system prevailing at any particular time. Our only 
hope of social progress lies, therefore, in changing the eco- 
nomic system which is the norm of adjustment in social life 
at any given time. 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 435 


As thus stated, the theory is a clear theory of the environ- 
mental determinism of social progress, though there might 
still be some mystery as to the nature of the forces which 
change the economic system. Perhaps it is for this reason 
that the theory becomes, with many writers, a confused jum- 
ble of objective and subjective factors. In these writers 
not only do objective economic conditions, technologies, and 
“goods” fall under the caption of “economic,” but also human 
interests, desires, and ideas. However, the more scientific 
advocates of the theory state it mainly in objective and en- 
vironmental terms. They hold that human interests, desires, 
and ideas are mere reflexes of economic conditions, and that 
the system of industry and technology at any given time is 
the basis upon which all else in the social life builds itself up 
as a superstructure, and which in the long run determines 
the whole character of the social life. This statement cor- 
responds with the popular statement of the theory which we 
noted above; namely, that if objective economic conditions 
were made right, other things in human social life would 
spontaneously right themselves. The “other things” in social 
life, in other words, are considered more or less of a reflex 
of objective economic conditions. 

That there is much psychological and sociological truth in 
this theory, the preceding chapters of this book have certainly 
indicated. There can be no doubt that much of the stimulus 
for social changes comes from the crises and maladjustments 
in what we may call “the system of social maintenance,” in 
other words, the economic system. ‘There can also be no 
doubt that that system does furnish, at any particular mo- 
ment, an environment which demands and even necessitates 
more or less adjustment to it on the part of individuals and 
groups living within the system. Thus our economic or in- 
dustrial order does furnish the great framework, the main 
outlines, of our civilization. For understanding the main 
distinctive features of our culture, or of any culture, we must 


436 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


turn, in a great degree, to its technology and industrial or- 
ganization. Admitting all of this, the question still remains, 
is this an adequate theory of social progress? Are the psy- 
chological factors involved in social change mere reflexes, 
as this theory claims, in the long run determined by objective 
economic conditions ? 

While we may grant that the theory of the economic 
determinism of social progress includes important factors 
neglected by the two preceding theories, yet it overlooks 
even more important factors. It is not in accord with some 
of the fundamental principles of sociology and social psychol- 
ogy which we have pointed out. It regards the organism as 
passive rather than as active and creative. The mind of man 
is regarded not as an active instrument of adaptation, but 
as a more or less passive reflex of the environment. Be- 
havior and ideas are, according to this theory, merely a 
function of the environment, and not, as we have seen, a 
function of both original human nature and the environment. 
In order to qualify as an adequate scientific theory of social 
evolution, this theory must prove itself to be an adequate 
theory of the determination of behavior and consciousness 
by the material conditions of life. This it has not yet done, 
and it must be doubted if it can do so for many reasons: 
(1) because of biological variations which spring from the 
forces resident within the organism; (2) because of the part 
played by native impulses in determining the interests and 
behavior of the individual; (3) because of the creative nature 
of the human individual. In other words, the organizing 
and creative or constructive tendency of the higher phases 
of the human mind, such as imagination and reasoning, is 
quite left out of account by this theory. Psychologically, 
therefore, the theory is built upon an inadequate foundation. 
It assumes the discredited psychology of the nineteenth cen- 
tury as a necessary presupposition. 

Sociologically, the theory is equally weak. Scientific social 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 437 


study has shown that the most important source of the ideals 
and standards for group behavior are not economic condi- 
tions, but the interrelations of the members of the group. 
The source of social ideals is personal and social rather than 
economic. As we have already seen, for example, the source 
of the primary ideals is the life of the primary groups, such 
as the family and the neighborhood. These groups are 
found everywhere in all stages of industrial development ; 
and hence they dominate the more intimate standards and 
ideals of social life far more than the particular industrial 
system. 

In other words, this theory makes the wrong assumption 
that the primary adjustment which the individuals of a> 
human group have to make is to things; whereas, in reality 
it is to other human beings. The norm of adjustment for 
individuals of a group is not to the economic or the industrial 
system, but to their psycho-social environment as a whole. 
If this were not so, material culture should have developed 
in advance of language, religion, and morals; but as a matter 
of fact, we find these latter phases of culture developing in 
early human society not infrequently in advance of the sys- 
tem of material technology. Thus, anthropology clearly 
shows, for example, that language got its development much 
in advance of the industrial system or system of technology. 
The Fuegians have a highly elaborate language of over thirty 
thousand words, while their technology is the very simplest. 
Again, the Bushmen of South Africa have a very elaborate 
language with a rich vocabulary and oral literature; but their 
system of technology or of industry remains but little in 
advance of that of primitive man. 

Human history shows that cultural traits of various sorts 
often change quite independently of technology or. of indus- 
try. In the history of the world, peoples’ moral, religious, 
artistic, and scientific ideas have often changed without ap- 
preciable changes in their systems of industry. Thus the 


438 | PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Jews apparently reached the stage of henotheism, if not of 
monotheism, while they were yet in the pastoral stage of 
industry. On the other hand, peoples have not infrequently 
changed their systems of industry without appreciable changes 
in their fundamental moral, religious, and artistic ideas. 
Thus the Chinese, even though they left the pastoral stage 
of industry more than two thousand years ago, have remained 
ancestor worshipers down to the present—a form of religion 
which is supposed to be closely correlated with pastoral indus- 
try. The only scientific conclusion which we can reach, 
therefore, is that there is no such exact correlation between 
the different phases of culture and social life as economic 
determinism presupposes. Socially prevalent ideas, stand- 
ards, and behavior are not necessarily reflexes of economic 
conditions. Rather, to understand why they prevail we must 
usually turn to the social tradition or to the psycho-social 
environment. 

Yet there may be much practical truth in this one-sided 
sociological theory, because it does emphasize one important 
set of factors in the social life which have often been over- 
looked. The social life of a group must have a certain 
harmony about it if the group is to maintain its unity. While 
some elements of culture will fit together, others will not. 
Hence, a change in the method of getting a living frequently 
does necessitate extensive readjustments in the whole life 
of the group. Perhaps the same cannot be said for changes 
in scientific knowledge or in moral, religious, or artistic stand- 
ards. Sometimes changes take place in these latter without 
appreciable changes in the material life of the group. Never- 
theless, changes in these things are apt, also, to bring about 
changes in the whole social life. Our habits of response to 
certain classes of stimuli affect, to a certain extent, our habits 
of response to all other classes. This is because of the unity 
of the personality of the individual and of the interdepend- 
ence of all phases of the social life. But while it follows 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 439 


that the economic phases of social life must affect, to a very 
great degree, all other phases, it does not follow that they 
determine them in any definite way or to any such extent as 
the economic determinists have thought. Economic condi- 
tions in the main are conditions rather than causes of social 
progress. Critical scientific study leaves the doctrine of 
economic determinism, in the sense that economic factors 
dominate the whole of social life and culture, without ade- 
quate scientific foundation. 

But, it may be asked, is not the economic factor in the 
social situation the one that changes, and, consequently, the 
one to which we must look for the explanation of social 
change? The reply is that it is not the only factor in the 
social process which changes, and that changes in other 
factors are often antecedent to economic changes. Indeed, 
as we have seen, the processes of invention and discovery 
are those by which the material aspects of human culture, 
such as technology and industry, have been built up; and 
these processes, while dependent upon general social con- 
ditions, and especially upon crises in the system of main- 
tenance, are, nevertheless, essentially psychic and personal 
in their nature. The economic situation furnishes stimuli; 
but, as we have seen, scientific psychology does not find 
external stimuli to be the full explanation of any response. 
We saw in Chapter X that the intelligence of man, manifest- 
ing itself in the invention of tools, weapons, labor-saving 
devices, and improvements in the means of communication, 
and in discovering the laws of phenomena and properties 
of things, has been the real basis upon which the structure 
of civilization has been reared. And we must remember 
that human intelligence is not concerned alone with things 
and with man’s relation to things, but even more with the 
relations of men to one another and with the standards and 
values which guide and motivate conduct. The real motive 

force for social progress, then, lies within the individual and 


440 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


within the life of the group, and not in the objective condi- 
tions in the physical environment. These latter are, as we 
have said, the conditions, but not the causes of social progress. . 

But this conclusion does not exclude the view that there 
is a certain justification for the predominatingly economic 
character of the social consciousness of our time; for we must 
admit the essential dependence of all higher forms of civi- 
lization upon economic conditions. In a sense, the depend- 
ence of man upon economic conditions increases as civiliza- 
tion advances; for with the growth of technological and 
industrial systems, the economic environment comes to have 
a good deal of the same relation to civilized man that the 
geographic environment had to primitive man. In other 
words, the type of civilization becomes very largely depend- 
ent upon economic conditions. Like the physical environ- 
ment, the economic system presents the platform upon which 
social progress must continue. But, also like the physical 
environment, the economic system is not so much a rigidly 
determining element as the basis upon which we act. It 
furnishes certain conditions and certain stimuli to develop- 
ment in certain directions without which a right development 
of the whole social life would be impossible. It is unfor- 
tunate, perhaps, that the emphasis upon the importance of 
economic conditions in our social life should just now be 
obscuring the importance of spiritual factors; but there can 
be no question, from the standpoint of social psychology, 
that before many of the higher mental and moral adjust- 
ments can be successfully made in our social life, economic 
conditions will have to be made favorable to these adjust- 
ments. This may be only a preliminary step, perhaps, in true 
social progress, but it is a step which must be taken before 
we can have a humanity adjusted to the requirements of its 
social existence. 

Hence the sociologist and social psychologist must be 
heartily in favor of all those social reforms which aim at 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 441 


securing economic justice in our present society. He must 
be in favor of removing those social and economic inequali- 
ties which hamper the normal physical, intellectual, and 
moral development of the individual. He must favor, in 
other words, the securing to each individual of the economic 
minimum which is necessary for right living and social 
efficiency. He may heartily unite with social workers in 
approving such movements as that for compulsory insurance 
against the contingencies of life, such as sickness, accident, 
unemployment, old age, and invalidity; the movement for a 
minimum wage sufficiently high to make possible a human 
standard of living; the movement for labor legislation which 
will protect the worker against accident, disease, and too 
long hours of labor, and remove children from industry; the 
movement for reforms in our present system of taxation, 
such as will furnish adequate revenue for social needs and 
at the same time serve to redistribute wealth and equalize. 
opportunities. All these and many other economic reforms 
are necessary preliminaries for the highest degree of social 
progress. The industrial poverty which characterizes our 
civilization ought to be abolished, and there is no reason 
why it cannot be without social revolution. Full recognition 
of the importance of psychological factors in our social life 
does not lead, then, to unduly minimizing the real importance 
of objective economic conditions. It leads us rather to see 
that material progress is only a part, though a necessary one, 
of general social progress. When the material conditions 
of life have been properly cared for, there still remain men- 
tal and moral adjustments to be made, which, indeed, must 
be made to keep step with material progress if civilization 
is to realize any harmonious development. It is the over- 
looking of this fact which makes the economic theory of 
progress psychologically, to some extent, a danger in present 
society. 


442 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY, 


Psychological Theories of Progress 


The theories of progress which we have thus far discussed: 
emphasize what we may call the relatively nonhuman factors; 
for they place the determining factors in progress and in its 
control largely outside of man. This is true even of the 
economic theory of progress, especially when stated in its 
most rigid form. For its extreme advocates have represented 
the succession of methods of getting a living and of tech- 
nology as something inevitable and almost mechanical. The 
psychological theories of progress, on the other hand, have 
usually represented social progress as within human control, 
for they emphasize one factor or another within the mind 
of man as the instrument of progressive adaptation. 

We have already seen that progress is essentially a learn- 
ing process, a process in which man learns gradually better 
ways of living through better control over external condi- 
tions and over his own behavior. We have also seen that 
this process of increasing control depends upon human in- 
ventiveness, and that human inventiveness, in turn, depends 
upon imagination and reasoning. The imagination of man 
has enabled him to make new patterns to guide his behavior, 
and so to make new tools and new institutions. But the 
imagination and reasoning have to act upon the materials 
furnished by experience. Hence, knowledge has to accumu- 
late through experience before imagination and reasoning 
can devise new controls over physical nature and human 
behavior. Mistakes, of course, may often be made in these 
new devices. Whether they furnish a superior means of 
control or not, can only be told by testing them out in the 
real world. Hence we may say that the method of man’s 
progress has been experimental. It has been a method of 
trial and error, but, with the accumulation of knowledge and 
experience, less and less of blind trial and error. Through 
his imagination man has been able to test out experimentally 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 443 


in advance the effect of his new patterns of behavior and 
of his new values. This is particularly true since the advent 
of the scientific method, though we should not overlook the 
fact that reasoning has always consisted, to a certain extent, 
of performing experiments in imagination. Thus, as we 
have tried to show in the preceding pages, the intelligence 
of man in its distinctively human phases of imagination and 
reasoning has been the supreme instrument of adaptation 
and control in human social life; that like all instruments 
of adaptation, however, it has at times functioned inade- 
quately; but that we may expect it to function more ade- 
quately just in proportion as it perfects itself through the 
accumulation of tested knowledge. The accumulation of 
knowledge is then one of the positive bases of all social 
progress. 

Scientific sociology thus shows us the element of truth and 
the limitations of the so-called ideological theory of progress. 
It shows us that the accumulation of knowledge and the 
resulting growth of intelligence is one of the dynamic factors 
in social progress, but not the only factor ; that human history 
is not primarily a movement of ideas, but an evolution of 
human behavior, wherein ideas function to secure adjust- 
ment. Human intelligence does not work in a mechanical 
way, nor is the movement of ideas a purely logical one, as 
some social thinkers have tried to make out. Ideas or mental 
patterns are instruments of adjustment to guide efforts at 
betterment. They are indispensable instruments if social 
progress is to be rationally planned and humanly controlled; 
but progress, if it comes, must come as the result of conscious 
human effort. It comes through the human will and not 
through intelligence working by itself. A purely intellec- 
tualistic theory of social progress is perhaps as dangerous 
and one-sided as any of the theories which we have discussed. 

If progress comes, then, it must be through human effort, 
and not through the effort of one, but through the effort of 


444 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


many. It involves the codperation of groups of men; and 
this codperation necessitates, as we have seen, understanding, 
sympathy, and good will. The increase of sympathy and 
good will is just as necessary for better social adjustments 
as the accumulation and rationalization of knowledge. The 
control which brings about progress, as we have seen, is a 
double control over physical nature and human relations. 
Both sorts of control demand intelligence; and the latter 
manifestly demands social good will between individuals. 
But even the control of physical nature cannot go far with- 
out the increase of coOperation; and increase of cooperation 
depends not only upon increasing intelligence, but also upon 
increasing good will. The second positive psychological 
factor in social progress is, therefore, clearly the increase or 
accumulation of good will; and if humanity, as we earlier 
said, is the ultimate subject of progress, then progress de- 
pends upon the accumulation of good will between all human 
groups. 

We have already said that there is no necessary antagonism 
between intelligence and ‘altruism in human society. The 
one can and should be made to aid the other. We can hardly 
expect to develop right emotional and will attitudes in indi- 
viduals who lack intelligence, or even who are uninformed. 
Ignorance has been the greatest obstacle to human progress 
because it prevents not only the perception of the means of 
progress but also of the need of the right emotional and will 
attitudes. Knowledge aids in getting the right social values 
and so in getting the right attitudes in individuals. Good 
will, as we have seen, is largely to be cultivated through 
the expansion of our knowledge of our fellow beings, but it 
is also true that there is no assurance that knowledge will be 
used rightly unless there is good will. Therefore, we must 
recognize that the emotions and the will, especially if they 
are socialized, play a scarcely less important part in human 
progress than the development of intelligence. If we are to 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 448 


realize permanent progress, we must not only accumulate 
knowledge and develop intelligence, but we must also accumu- 
late altruism by the cultivation of altruistic habits and sym- 
pathies. 

The movement against alcoholism in modern society will 
serve to illustrate these points. Without any change in geo- 
graphical environment or biological conditions, and without 
radical changes in our economic system, but simply through 
the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge regarding the 
physiological and social effects of alcohol and through the 
growth of humanitarian sentiments, a great movement has 
arisen in the more progressive societies of Western civiliza- 
tion which seems about to sweep away the use, if not of all, 
at least of the stronger alcoholic beverages. If through the 
accumulation and diffusion of knowledge regarding the in- 
jurious effects of alcohol and the inculcation of humanitarian 
sentiments, such a revolution can be brought about in the 
long-standing mores of civilized nations regarding alcohol— 
mores defended by privilege and by vested interests—then 
there is good ground for believing that progressive, rational 
changes can be brought about in every phase of our social 
life and culture by similar means. Let us note, however, 
that this movement has been successful only to the extent 
that standards and habits regarding alcohol have been incul- 
cated in the young through the imparting of scientific knowl- 
edge and the cultivation of humanitarian sentiments. If the 
movement is still far from complete success, it is only because 
this has not yet been done with sufficient thoroughness 
throughout our civilization. 


Education as the Method of Social Progress 


If the accumulation of knowledge and of altruism, or good 
will, are the two great keys to social progress immediately 
within our control, then the means of social manipulation 
and control of these psychic processes becomes a question of 


446 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


supreme importance for social progress. Obviously the 
means lie in the process of individual education, if we use 


that phrase to mean everything which helps to form the 


habits and character of individuals. The great service which 
Lester F. Ward rendered to the social sciences was to demon- 
strate that education was the initial means of progress in 
human society. Ward showed that it was through education 
that we must hope to control opinions, beliefs, standards, and 
so actions in human society. We have tried to show that 
this view is essentially correct, if we give to education the 
large conception which has been worked out by educational 
science; namely, the whole process of controlling the forma- 
tion of habits and character in individuals. 

The key to progress then lies in the “social attitudes” 
developed in individuals, and their development is a matter 
of education in the broadest sense. It is, of course, more 
than the education of the intellect, but equally the education 
of the habits and the emotions. It is more than any educa- 
tion which the school alone has thus far offered, but equally 
the education of the home, the neighborhood, the press, the 
church, and of the whole psycho-social environment. It is 
the education of the whole man, such an education as will 
fit him for participation in the social life in the way most 
advantageous to the future of humanity. 

Manifestly such an education can be provided only through 
the coordination of all the educational agencies of society. 
But the school may justly be regarded as the chief and the 
center of these agencies. The school, however, should be 
coordinated with other agencies which control the formation 
of the habits and character of individuals and find a way 
of working in harmony with them. Probably the school 
should find means of coordinating itself with such other edu- 
cational agencies as the home, the church, the library, and 
the public press. The educative process should become the 
organization of all the means of the psychic adjustment of 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 447 


the individual to the social life. It should be a consciously 
directed and controlled social evolution. Such an education 
would truly become the initial means of controlling social 
organization and social progress. 

This is not a mere theory as to the method of progress; 
for we know that culture has always been handed down from 
generation to generation by an educative process, by a process 
of teaching and learning. Culture has been passed down in 
human history, therefore, essentially by educational processes, 
though until recently these have usually been of an informal 
character. While culture may be passed along to the new 
generation in a static way, and so become a bar to progress; 
yet, as we have already pointed out, education may become 
as easily the instrument of progress. For it is exactly in 
the process of the transmission of the acquirements of the 
past from one generation to another that there is opportunity 
for improvement. Methods and processes of education have 
largely determined whatever social progress there has been 
in the past; they can even more largely determine the social 
progress of the future. 

But the educational theory of progress is essentially a 
theory of the method rather than of the causes of social 
progress. The learning process is the method by which 
- humanity improves its social adjustments. Formal education 
may be a method through which all the various factors in 
progress, especially the psychic factors, may be put to work. 
When we attribute great importance to education in social 
progress, we do so because human experience has shown 
education to be an effective means of the social manipulation 
of habits of thinking and acting, and so of the control of 
social behavior, and, indirectly, even of industrial processes 
and biological conditions. It is through education that the 
tradition of progress must be established in all phases of our 
social life. Through education progressive ideas in govern- 
ment and law, religion and morality may be inculcated in the 


= 


& 


448 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


young, and so furnish the patterns for future social behavior. 
In short, education can furnish, as we have seen, a sort of 
artificial psycho-social environment for the development of 
a higher life both for the individual and for society. 


The Sociological Theory of Progress 


It is evident that the conditions and causes of social prog- 
ress are complex. An adequate scientific theory of social 
progress must, therefore, include more than the strictly 
psychological factors. A scientific theory of social progress 
must include all elements and factors in progress. It must 
be not unilateral, but synthetic. In other words, the sociolog- 
ical theory of progress must find a place for favorable phys- 
ical and geographical conditions, biological factors of heredity 
and selection, the economic factors of the production and 
distribution of wealth, and the psychological factors of 
knowledge, attitudes, and values. In homely language, we 
need for social progress not only natural resources, better 
bodily health, and better economic conditions, but better 
thinking, better mutual feeling, and better mutual will. A 
sociological theory of progress must show how all of these 
must work together. As Professor Todd has said, “The 
progress of society is not merely moral progress, or intel- 
lectual progress, or material progress, or institutional prog- 
ress; it is a complex combination of all these and more. It 
is probable, however, that the natural order of these may be 
through the material and intellectual to the moral; the mate- 
rial furnishing the basis, the intellectual and institutional the 


means, working toward the moral as the result.” ® 


A scientific theory of progress must show how all of the 
factors at work in social evolution may be given, through 
rational social control, a socially progressive direction. So 
far as psychic processes are concerned, it is clear that they 





6 Todd, Theories of Social Progress, p. 148. 


EE a — =i 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 449 


must work toward an increasingly efficient and harmonious 
social organization if they are to work consistently toward 
social progress. In other words, these psychic processes 
must be socialized. Intelligence, emotional and will attitudes 
of individuals must be socialized through the social education 
which we have already discussed. Through the direction of 
the intelligence toward the understanding of social conditions, 
the training of efficient social imagination, and the enlarge- 
ment of social sympathy in individuals, we shall bring about 
more harmonious adjustments in the total life of humanity. 
If humanity is the final subject of progress, then it is only 
the ideas, attitudes, and values which work toward the har- 
monious adaptation of humanity as a whole which are capable 
of working consistently in the direction of social progress. 
If we thus socialize the ideas, attitudes, and values of indi- 
viduals, there is every reason to believe that it will be found 
comparatively easy to socialize industrial and even biological 
processes also; that is, to direct them so as to increase the 
sum total of human values or to realize the largest human 
good for all. 

In practice, this increasing socialization of the various 
elements in human nature and in social life shows itself in 
the maximization of harmony and codperation and in the 
minimization of hostility and conflict among men. The direct 
inculcation of harmony and codperation and the public con- 
demnation of hostile conflict may accomplish something; but 
in general the indirect means of developing harmonious co- 
operation which we have already discussed will probably 
prove to be the more fruitful method. To accept codperation 
as the key to collective achievement, and so to social progress, 
does not mean, however, that all forms of competition are 
to be gotten rid of in human society. As we have already 
pointed out, competition is indispensable for the working of 
any sort of selective process. It is only the lower and more 
brutal forms of competition and conflict which we need to 


450 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


eliminate as dangers to social progress. Conflict of ideas 
and competition among groups and institutions are indis- 
pensable for social progress. In other words, we need to 
socialize and moralize the competitive process in human 
relations. Such socialized competition stimulates and is an 
aid to social cooperation and, as we have said in the pre- 
ceding chapter, is in no way opposed to order and harmony 
in human groups. : 

Another practical conclusion to which the sociological 
theory of progress clearly leads is that we should get rid of 
narrow, one-sided movements and developments in our social 
life. Especially do we need to get rid of the development 
of material civilization at the expense of spiritual culture. 
This we can do readily enough by devoting more energy and 
attention to the spiritual side of our civilization. In general, 
our civilization is menaced by one-sided development and 
narrow group movements, aiming only at the good of par- 
ticular classes or groups. All of these one-sided movements 
are implicitly based upon one-sided theories of social prog- 
ress, such as those which we have discussed. They rest upon 
the perception of the importance of some single element or 
aspect in our social life. They are usually well-intentioned, 
but short-sighted. No true progressive policy which will be 
lasting in our civilization can be secured by encouraging such 
one-sided movements. As we have already seen, they present 
a grave social danger, because they give rise to ill-balanced 
views of the social life and to exaggerated and inharmonious 
developments. We shall not be able to secure balanced social 
progress until social policy is broadened so as to give scien- 
tific and duly proportionate attention to all important factors 
in our social life. This means that our social movements 
need to be synthesized into a general movement for human 
social welfare, if satisfactory social progress is to result; and 
that they need to be given a humanitarian direction rather 
than a direction favorable to one class or group. 


SOCIAL PROGRESS 451 


Practically, also, the sociological theory of progress points 
to the scientific method as the rational means of achieving 
progress. There is a better way of learning to solve the 
problems of life than by muddling through them; this is 
through the scientific method of a rationally planned educa- 
tion which will fit the individuals of a group to solve their 
problems by means of scientific knowledge. The hope of 
human society, in other words, lies in the development of its 
own social self-knowledge; that is, in the development of 
social consciousness concerning every phase of the social life 
and concerning human society as a whole. It is through such 
scientific study and investigation of the social life that the 
value of each of its phases as a factor in social welfare must 
become apparent. And it is through the bringing together 
and the synthesis of all of this knowledge in a science which 
will deal with the social life as a whole that the social life 
as a whole will become intelligible, and so, subject to rational 
control. The perfecting of the instruments of social progress 
depends, therefore, largely upon the development of the social 
sciences, and especially of sociology. Only the development 
of these sciences can give assurance of continued social prog- 
ress, and even of avoiding social catastrophe. Humanity will 
be able to secure control over itself and over physical nature 
only with the fuller knowledge of social relations which the 
development of the social sciences can give to us. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Topp, Theories of Social Progress, Chaps. VI-X XXIV. 

BartH, Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Soziologie. 

BLACKMAR and GILLIN, Outlines of Sociology, pp. 414-421. 

Bocarpus, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Chaps. XXXV- 
ML. 

BristoLt, Social Adaptation: A Study in the Development of 
the Doctrine of Adaptation as a Theory of Social Progress. 

Burcess, The Function of Socialization in Social Evolution, 
Chaps. VI-X. 


452 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


Bury, The Idea of Progress, Chaps. XV-XIX. 

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress. 

Case, Outlines of Introductory Sociology, Chap. XLVI. 

Crozier, Civilization and Progress, Part VI. 

Davis, Psychological Interpretations of Society, Chap. XIII. 

DeaLey, Sociology, Its Development and Applications, Chaps. 
XVII-XIX. 

DeGoBINEAU, The Inequality of Human Races, Chaps. I-IV. 

Extitwoop, The Social Problem, Chaps. IV, VII. 

FarircHILD, Outline of Applied Sociology. 

Forp, Social Problems and Social Policy, Part I. 

GILLETTE, Sociology, Chaps. X-XII. 

Grant, The Passing of the Great Race. 

Hayes, Introduction to the Study of Sociology, Part III. 

HunTINGTON, Civilization and Climate, Chaps. I, II, XIII. 

Kine, Education for Social Efficiency, Chap. XVII; Social 
Aspects of Education, Chap. XI. 

Keiuer, Societal Evolution, Chaps. V, VI, VIII-X. . 

Marx, Critique of Political Economy, Author’s Preface. 

MatuHeEws, The Spiritual Interpretation of History. 

_ Morcan, Education and Social Progress. 

NasMyTH, Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory, Chap. IX. 

Park and Burcess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 
Chap. XIV. ; 

Patrick, The Psychology of Social Reconstruction, Chaps. 
II-IV. 

Patten, Theory of Social Forces, Chaps. IV, V. 

SELIGMAN, Economic Interpretation of History. 

Sims, Society and Its Surplus, Chaps. XI, XVI. 

TeGcceRT, The Processes of History. 

Urwick, A Philosophy of Social Progress, Chap. X. 

Warp, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, Chaps. X-XIV; Applied 
Sociology, Chaps. VII-XIII. 


CHAPTER XV 
THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 


Tue knowledge which social psychology and sociology 
furnish us may be summed up in a general theory of the 
nature of human society. Obviously, all that we have said 
has a bearing upon such a theory. What, then, shall we 
conclude to be the nature of human society from the dis- 
cussions of the preceding pages? 

Three great historical theories of the nature of human 
society have been held by.the social thinkers of the past, 
and all of them are to some extent still held by thinkers of the 
present. These theories are the contract theory, the organ- 
ismic theory, and the broadly psychological theory which we 
may call the cultural. Other theories of the social life than 
these three are, of course, possible; but as a matter of fact, 
other theories have gravitated in the direction of one or the 
other of the three great historical theories which we have 
named. Thus, mechanistic theories of human society have 
usually tended in practice to become either contract theories 
or organismic theories. A critical consideration of these 
three leading theories should, accordingly, help us to bring 
together what we have learned concerning human society and 
to get a general scientific view of its nature. Let us, accord- 
ingly, consider briefly these theories in the order of their 
historical development. 


The Contract Theory of Society 


Probably most persons who have thought bear human 
social life at all have begun their thinking with what we call 
a crude contract theory of society; that is, they have thought 

453 


454 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


of the unity and form of the social life as a matter of agree- 
ment and understanding between individuals. This theory is 
very old. It is, indeed, the first form which rationalistic | 
thought, as a rule, has taken regarding the social life. While 
it goes back in its beginnings to early Greek philosophy, it 
became fully developed only in the hands of the legal and 
political thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
The sociological thought of those centuries was very largely 
in terms of the contract theory. Such thinkers as Hobbes, 
Locke, and Rousseau each gave the theory a peculiar expres- 
sion. The theory had defenders even among nineteenth 
century sociologists. De Greef, the Belgian sociologist, found 
the essence of society to consist in the phenomena of con- 
tract.t All sociological thinkers who find that the social life 
rests fundamentally upon mutual understanding and mutual 
agreement should be ranked with the contract theorists.? 

The essence of the contract theory is that human society 
is primarily a rational and artificial construction brought 
about by an expressed or implied agreement among indi- 
viduals, an explicit or implicit “contract” between individuals. 
It is the theory that human institutions are essentially arbi- 
trary inventions, and that they can be made over by mutual 
agreement to suit the convenience of the parties in the con- 
tract. All social organization, according to this theory, is 
the outcome of the mutual consent of the individuals of the 
group, whose relations exist only by virtue of this mutual 
consent. For example, according to this theory the form of 
government, or the form of the family, is dependent simply 
upon the agreement and convenience of the individuals in- 
volved, and these forms may be made over to suit the pleasure 
of the individuals concerned. | 

A modification of this theory is to be found among recent 


1 De Greef, Introduction 4 la Sociologie, Vol. I, pp. 131-147. 
2Fite’s Individualism contains the most modern presentation of 
the contract theory (Lecture IV). 


THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 455 


writers who hold that, while the origin of human society 
and human institutions was not in contract or mutual con- 
sent, society and institutions should proceed to organize at 
once upon the basis of contract. Mutual agreement as to 
the forms of the social life may not have been the basis of 
social order in the past, but it can and should speedily become 
so. For example, marriage and the family may not have 
been originally a contract, but marriage and family relations 
in the future should be simply of the nature of a contract, 
entered into by individuals of their own free choice, and 
dissolved by individuals by mutual consent. All human 
society is passing, these theorists tell us, from a condition 
of status to a condition of contract. This theory accordingly 
presents contract, not as the origin of society, but as its goal. 

It is a frequent mistake to confuse the contract theory in 
some of its forms with a cultural or psychological view of 
human ‘social life. The contract theory is, however, not a 
psychological theory of society in the broad scientific sense, 
but rather an intellectualistic theory; its basis is an individ- 
ualistic theory of our mental and social life. It is to be 
sharply distinguished, therefore, even in the modified form 
which we have just stated, from the general psychological 
theory of human society which we have attempted to set forth 
in this book, 


Criticism 


The whole view of human group life which we have pre- 
sented is opposed to the belief that human relations and 
human institutions are essentially rational and artificial con- 
structions or mere arbitrary inventions. We have tried to 
show that they are rather in the nature of adaptations to 
the requirements of life, in which the intellectual factor 
figures simply as one element. We are very far from deny- 
ing an element of truth in the contract theory, especially as 
stated in its modified form. We have seen that intelligence, 


450 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


and, hence, intelligent agreement, play an increasingly im- 
portant part in all social adjustments, and that even the 
convenience of men can be better served through the intelli- 
gent understanding of the laws of physical nature and of 
human living together. However, the contract theory, in 
making human institutions arbitrary inventions, fails to take 
these laws into account in any adequate manner, that is, to 
allow for the factors in human living together which are 
beyond arbitrary control, or not subject to man’s mere con- 
venience. In general it neglects or discards as of little im- 
portance the biological, instinctive, and habitual elements in 
human relations, to say nothing of the great factor of organ- 
ized authority or coercive social control. 

Nearly every one sees now that the contract theory fails 
entirely as a theory of human social origins. As has often 
been pointed out, it presupposes that human society was 
originally made up entirely of normal adult individuals, each 
of high intelligence, capable of understanding and of ac- 
quiescing in all the regulations which exist in a well-ordered 
social life. That such a condition of affairs existed primi- 
tively is, of course, a ludicrous idea. 

Many people who see this do not see, however, that the 
contract theory affords no adequate ideal for human rela- 
tions. They fail to see that human social life, in its essence, 
is not, and never can be, a matter of mere consent or con- 
venience between individuals; that human living together, 
if it is to have any measure of success, must be in accord 
with the more fundamental forces which shape human life 
asa whole. The more general conditions and laws of human 
living together are beyond the control of man; they are not 
arbitrary constructions of the human intellect. They must 
be understood and accepted. Men must adjust themselves 
to these fundamental conditions of harmonious human living 
whether they please them or not. There is much more than 
mere contract, therefore, in human social life. Status must 


THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 457 


always remain a part of the social life. The contract theory 
assumes that the social life may become, even if it is not such 
already, quite entirely an intellectual and arbitrary construc- 
tion to suit the pleasure of individuals. But physical, biolog- 
ical, and the deeper psychological factors which enter into 
human institutions and relations make it necessary that these 
be something more than mere arbitrary inventions. Rather, 
human institutions must be made like the steam engine— 
taking fundamental facts and laws into account. Funda- 
mental biological and psychological conditions must be 
accepted; and these preclude a social life which is merely a 
matter of consent. For example, marriage and the family 
can never become merely a form of contract or of mutual 
agreement. The biological conditions of life militate against 
such a possibility. The necessities of the birth and rearing 
of children, and hence of the whole welfare of humanity, 
would bring about, if such a possibility could be realized, 
the defeat of any civilization which adopted it. Obviously 
the contract theory is individualistic and, in its more extreme 
forms, antisocial and unethical. 

Because the contract theory neglects the deeper, more 
fundamental factors in the social life, it is a theory which 
favors the making of arbitrary changes in human institutions 
and relations. It was formulated very largely in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries as an instrument of social 
revolution, and it is still to-day used largely for that purpose. 
It is a dangerous theory, because it exaggerates the ease with 
which social changes can be made, and it fails to take into 
account all factors upon which social changes which are suc- 
cessful must rest. Very naturally, therefore, it leads to reac- 
tion, that is, to the very opposite theory which would 
overemphasize the part which blind forces play in human 
relations, and so underemphasize the part which the human 
mind may play in modifying human institutions. 


458 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


The Organismic Theory of Society 


As we have just said the natural reaction from the contract 
theory of society is to be found in the organismic conception © 
of society. This conception grew up largely under the 
influence of the reaction which followed the French Revolu- 
tion and of the development of biological science in the 
nineteenth century. While its beginnings go back again to 
Greek philosophy, it came to its fullest and most consistent 
expression in writers such as Herbert Spencer who were 
dominated by the theory of organic evolution.® 

The essential idea of this theory is the opposite of the 
contract theory. It is the idea, namely, that society is a 
product of organic evolution and so is essentially an organism, 
like a plant or an animal. It is a growth which has come 
about through the operation of natural law. If it is not 
exactly a biological organism, it is, in any case, essentially 
like a biological organism in its nature and construction. Its 
unity is in nowise different from the unity which we find 
in the biological organism; it is essentially a physical or 
physiological dependence, such as we find between the parts 
of a biological organism. Moreover, like an organism it is 
subject to the same general laws of organic growth and decay. 
It is not unfair to say that this organic theory made human 
society essentially a product of the blind forces of nature. 
While the organic theorists admitted differences between the 
social organism and the biological organism, they held that 
the points of resemblance were much more important than 
the points of difference. 

Some of the organic theorists, such as Lilienfeld in 
Russia, held that the resemblances between biological and 
social organisms were not mere analogies, but accurate 
scientific descriptions of the social reality. In general, how- 
ever, the organic theorists claimed only that human societies 


8 Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, Part II, Chaps. I, II. 


THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 459 


presented analogies to biological organisms; that they were 
not biological organisms in the strict sense, but were 
“superorganisms.” Most of these theorists, however, 
regarded the social organism as a growth brought about by 
the operation of the blind forces of organic nature, but little 
subject to rational human control. Such especially, was the 
view of Herbert Spencer, in whose writings it is not unfair 
to say society appears as a sort of superhuman structure 
which science might presume to describe, but hardly to con- 
trol. While Spencer did not draw the conclusion of a rigid 
predetermination of social life by nonhuman factors, he 
nevertheless took a laissez-faire attitude toward human insti- 
tutions, as natural or organic constructions which man could 
hardly hope to control successfully by interfering with 
natural processes. 

When the implications of such a biological determinism or 
fatalism began to be perceived in the conception of human 
society as an organism, reaction from it was inevitable. But 
many attempts at modification of the theory arose. 
Philosophical writers undertook to interpret the view that 
human society was an organism in a philosophical or 
psychological way.* Writers like De Greef and Fouillée ® 
aim to reconcile the contract theory of society with the 
organismic theory by finding society to be essentially a “con- 
tractual organism.” These attempts at synthesis, however, 
were based not upon generalizations from social facts, but 
upon logical processes of reconciliation of antithetical theories, 
and hence they fell short of making a true synthesis. 


Criticism 


As a reaction from the contract theory, the organismic 
theory of society served a very useful purpose in the 
history of social thought. It emphasized the connections 





4 Compare Mackenzie, Introduction to Social Philosophy, Chap. III. 
5 Ta Science sociale contemporaine, Bk. II, Chap. III. 


460 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


between organic and social evolution, even though it 
exaggerated them. It also emphasized the compelling nature 
of the unity of the group, and the fact that social institutions 
are by no means arbitrary inventions. It set forth certain 
truths which the social sciences can never afford to ignore— 
namely, that human social life is a phase of organic life; 
that in the social process biological conditions and forces are 
fundamental; and that the unity and solidarity of human 
groups grow out of the original and continuing unity of the 
physical life-process. In fact, if the organismic theory were 
applied only to animal societies, such as a hive of bees or a 
colony ‘of ants, there could be little objection to it. The 
objection to the organismic theory lies in the fact that human 
social life has transcended the purely biological. 

There is little objection, of course, to the use of the 
term “organism” in the broad philosophical sense to describe 
human groups, if by it is meant nothing more than to 
emphasize the unity and interdependence of their group life. 
The word organism is in many ways the most apt philosophical 
term which we have to describe the unity of a human group. 
On the other hand, its use often suggests misleading analogies 
and leads to wrong conclusions. Analogy is never true 
science. The actual social life which we find in human groups 
is far from corresponding to the ordinary organismic con- 
ception; for they are made up of relatively independent, self- 
determining, self-conscious individuals, quite unlike in their 
nature, relations and behavior to the cells of a plant or an 
animal. 

There are many conditions in human social life which find 
no parallel in the strictly organic world. For example, human 
individuals are often members now of one group, now of 
another, and even of many groups at the same time. As long 
as the national group was the chief object of study in the 
social sciences, as it was in the nationalistic stage of sociology, 
it was easy to insist upon the many resemblances between 


Lae. NATORE OF SOCIETY 461 


such a group and a biological organism. But as soon as any 
social group became the unit of investigation in sociology, it 
was quite impossible to keep to the biological analogy. As 
Professor Ross said, under such conditions where the social 
organism begins or ends becomes a puzzle. The social 
sciences, moreover, now see that the national group itself, 
except in our special period of history, has no such definite- 
ness of form and structure and separateness from other 
groups as the organic analogy presupposes. 

In the hands of certain sociological writers the organismic 
theory became an instrument of social conservatism and even 
of the defense of absolutism in government. This was 
especially the case with Lilienfeld, a Russian sociologist. 
Lilienfeld held not only that the national group was a true 
organism, but also that its governing class corresponded in 
their function to the cells of the central nervous system. He 
held, therefore, that sociology upheld absolutism, and that 
the social order of the Russian autocratic state was scientific- 
ally justified. Thus it is evident that if the contract theory 
has played too much into the hands of social radicals and 
revolutionists, the organismic theory has played too much 
into the hands of social conservatives and absolutists. 

While we should drop the organic analogy in the social 
sciences, at least in the form in which it came to us from the 
nineteenth century, the truth which it emphasized, that human 
social groups are living, functioning unities whose basis is 
biological because they are part of the world of life in general, 
is a truth which objective social science will never discard. 


The Cultural or Psychological Theory of Society 


The further we get away from the animal plane, the less 
does a purely organic or biological way of looking at group 
life suffice. The human societies that we know are largely 
creations of cultural evolution, and human culture is 
essentially a psychic matter. As we have seen, the continuity 


462 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


which we find in human groups is a continuity maintained by 
passing on from generation to generation mental patterns— 
that is, knowledge, ideas, standards, and values—largely by 
means of language. These mental patterns have gradually | 
accumulated and developed from primitive times to the 
present. They are a set of inner mental habits acquired in 
ever increasing complexity by each succeeding generation. 
They also become a set of objective customs and institutions. 
Thus human social life presents itself as a developing culture, 
and human history as a growing tradition, which cannot be 
understood apart from its content, that is, the concrete ideas, 
attitudes, and values which make up a particular culture. 

This historical and cultural way of looking at human social 
life is often represented to be opposed to the psychological 
way ; but this is surely a mistake. In its constituent elements 
culture is psychological, and in the last analysis comes from 
the individual mind. If culture be analyzed, as Professor 
Goldenweiser says in effect,® every element in it will be 
found to have had its beginning in the creative act of an 
individual mind. Nevertheless, in another sense culture is 
cumulative, historical, and extraindividual. It is absorbed by 
the individual and: thus shapes his nature and his behavior. 
Its carrier is, however, the group. It furnishes the pattern 
for human group organization and group behavior as well 
as for individual behavior. Thus many human groups are 
entirely products of culture. Even though communities are 
natural genetic groups, all human communities which we 
know have been profoundly modified by their cultures. 

The cultural theory of human social life and the psy- 
chological are thus not opposed, except that the psychological 
is broader in its foundations and makes a place for the con- 
ception of social evolution as something broader than cultural 
evolution. While social life is modified by culture, it existed 
before culture began and is the carrier of culture. If we 


8 Publications of the American Sociological Society, 1924. 


THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 463 


neglect that part of social evolution which is brought about 
through the working of the factors in organic evolution— 
variation, heredity, and selection—then the social process 
presents itself as a continuous adaptation and readaptation 
in the relations of individuals to one another and to physical 
nature brought about by their mental processes. It is a 
behavior process mediated by interstimulation. The adapta- 
tions which persist in the group give rise to what we have 
termed group habits, also called folkways, which become 
crystallized into institutions of law, government, religion, 
morality, industry, and the like. These institutions mold the 
life and behavior of human groups. Accompanying them are, 
of course, uniform ways of thinking and feeling in the group 
passed along from generation to generation, which we term 
the tradition of the group, or the inner side of its culture. 
But all of this necessitates a continuous psycho-social process, 
a process of interstimulation and response among the in- 
dividuals of the group. Social interaction, interstimulation 
and response lie, therefore, at the basis of the cultural process, 
and hence of the behavior of human groups and of the 
changes in their behavior. 

Consequently, when we look at human society from the 
standpoint of its culture, that is from the standpoint of its 
folkways, its mores, its traditions, its conventions, and its 
institutions, we are looking at it from an essentially psy- 
chological standpoint, if we recognize that these things are 
essentially human behavior and are rooted in the mental 
life and development of its individual members. This we 
must do, unless we are to separate our whole view of human 
society from the rest of established scientific knowledge. We 
cannot view human culture as an abstraction apart from the 
rest of life. It is an outcome of the total life-processes of 
human groups. As soon as we recognize this the cultural 
view of human society blends with a broadly psychological 
view. 


464 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


It is the contention of this book that the psychology of 
human society, in the sense of the study of human group 
behavior, offers a scientific basis for the synthesis of the 
elements of truth in all contending theories of human society. 
It makes possible a true synthesis of the elements of truth 
in both the contract and organic theories, for example, 
because through the objective study of group behavior it 
makes possible a wider generalization which includes the 
facts in the social life which both have emphasized. The 
psychological theory of human social life is that its explana- 
tion is to be sought in three sets of facts: First, in the under- 
lying traits and dispositions of men as furnished by organic 
evolution; second, in the influences of the environment, 
especially the psycho-social environment, which act upon the 
plastic natures of individuals; and third, in the resultant 


habits, attitudes, and values which individuals develop. The 


scientific analysis of society leads back to the psychic indi- 
vidual, | 

The psychological conception of human society presents 
the social life as an adaptive process in which the habits, 
attitudes, and values of the individual function are active 
elements. The social process, according to this theory, is 
psychic only in the sense that its significant elements, such as 
interstimulation and response, and the habits, attitudes, and 
values developed by individuals, are psychic. More strictly, 
as we said in Chapter V, the social process may be described 
as a psycho-physical process of coadaptive adjustments among 
individuals. 

It is a mistake to seek the full explanation for group 
behavior either in the individual or in the culture of the 
group; for, again to quote Professor Goldenweiser, “while 
it is certainly true that the cultural content comes to the 
individual in a way that is external and objective, the in- 
dividual does, after all, recreate what he receives. He does 
so unconsciously by dint of the very variability of his native 
endowment, as well as consciously in the overt acts of 


THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 465 


psychic originality.”* Thus the social life presents itself 
as a process, but a process made up both of individual psychic 
elements and of social psychic, or cultural, elements; that is, 
of elements of interstimulation and response among 
individuals—such as communication, suggestion, imitation, 
sympathy, conflict—and of cultural elements—such as custom, 
tradition, conventions, and institutions. All of these processes 
ultimately enter into, and determine, the form of group 
behavior. Some of them are individual psychic, others are 
social psychic. The social psychic, or the cultural, however, 
can operate only through the individual and hence the in- 
dividual has a chance to modify it. On the other hand, the 
individual’s psychic life itself is largely determined by the 
social psychic, or the cultural. Individual behavior, in other 
words, comes largely from group culture; but culture in the 
last analysis, as we have said, comes from the individual 
mind. 

Thus the unity and the regularity developed in the life 
of human beings is a unity and regularity upon the psychic 
plane. The coadaptations between individuals, as we have 
seen, while they are codrdinations of their activities, yet 
as they are intermediated by feelings and ideas, also involve 
codrdinations of these psychic processes. Thus there is a 
large and increasingly important place in human social life 
for such factors as understanding, sympathy, imitation, and 
conscious social control as we ascend in the scale of group 
development. 

The psychological theory of human society is that society 
is the behavior process which arises from living together. 
It is a process in which the psychic elements of impulse, 
habit, feeling, and ideation, and their social expressions in 
_ communication, imitation, suggestion, sympathy, and other 
types of mental interaction, function as the vital constitutent 
elements. It is a process which becomes unified necessarily 





7 Publications of the American Sociological Society, 1924. 


466 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


on its psychic not less than on its physical side. Because 
human group life is mediated by these psychic processes, it 
must be interpreted, if interpreted scientifically, in terms 
of these processes. That is, it must be interpreted in psy- 
chological terms. It is for this reason that the sociological 
theory of society coincides with the broadly psychological. . 

The psychological theory is often misrepresented to be the 
imitation-suggestion theory, the sympathy theory, or even 
as we have seen, the contract theory. Scientific psychology, 
however, takes into account now only the strictly psychic 
elements in human behavior, but also biological processes and 
environmental conditions. It takes account not only of the 
organism but of its environment. It would be absurd, there- 
fore, to describe as a scientific psychological theory of 
human society a theory which is dominantly in terms of some 
one psychic element, such as imitation or sympathy, or even 
in terms of a whole class of psychic elements, such as the 
instincts or the intelligence. The psychological conception 
of society is a distinct conception, not to be confused with 
these one-sided conceptions, nor with the contract or organic 
conceptions. Like the organic conception, it gives a funda- 
mental place to organic factors, but unlike it it gives a large 
and increasingly important place to mental processes as we 
ascend in the scale of social evolution. The psychological 
view of the social life as essentially a collective behavior 
process mediated by conscious interstimulation and response 
furnishes, therefore, a basis for the synthesis of other 
theories, and so becomes itself the sociological view. It is 
a synthetic theory of the social process. 


The Practical Value of the Psychological Conception of 
Society 
The psychological conception of human social life has 
more than a mere theoretical value. As soon as we under- 
stand that human group life is a behavior process, we begin 


THE NATURE OF SOCIETY 467 


to understand how it may be modified. We understand that 
such a behavior process is not so much the result of inborn 
traits plus the influence of the physical environment as of the 
mental patterns in the minds of the individuals of the group. 
We see that in almost every case these mental patterns have 
been embodied in customs, traditions, and institutions and 
have been transmitted to the existing members of the group 
by previous generations. We see that these mental patterns 
have been acquired by the individuals of the group by a 
learning process and that, therefore, they can be modified 
through modifying the learning process. Human institutions, 
sociology and psychology show, are in every case learned 
adjustments. Most group behavior, therefore, as well as the 
more highly conscious individual behavior, is learned. As 
such it can be modified, provided we can control the learning 
processes. The social custom or tradition out of which an 
institution is formed is easily enough changed, provided we 
can effectively teach all concerned a better way, and provided 
also we can change those material conditions which support 
the institution and make it advantageous for individuals or 
a class of individuals to maintain it, This may be difficult to 
do in practice, but it has been done often enough in history, 
so that we have every reason to conclude that the social and 
institutional life of man is indefinitely modifiable, in the way 
of more rational adjustments to the requirements of social 
existence, 

The problem of modifying the social life, according to the 
psychological view, is essentially a problem of modifying 
habits and beliefs in vast masses of individuals. This can 
be done most easily through the education of the young. The 
easiest approach to the modification of human society, there- 
fore, is through making changes in the psycho-social environ- 
ment or the culture of the group. While it is difficult to 
change this quickly on a wide scale, it can be changed in 
small select groups, which become breeding places, so to 


468 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


speak, for new habits, ideas, and standards for the larger 
group. Thus, through the school and the church, it is 
possible to manipulate the ideas, attitudes, and values of ° 
individuals, especially of the young. The rational direction 
of these in the individual can certainly be counted upon to 
change the whole mass of habits, social attitudes, customs, 
and institutions of the larger group, even of human society at 
large. 

As soon as we perceive that the problem of modifying 
human society is a problem of modifying culture, we see that 
the limits of the possibilities of social change cannot be set. 
It is certain from anthropological science that human culture 
is still in its earlier stages of development. Civilization, in 
the sense of higher culture, is just beginning. When science 
has perfected our understanding of the principles of human 
psychology and sociology, especially when it has established 
a scientific sociology, the civilizing process will be rationally 
directed, and social progress will be beyond anything which 
the world now dreams to be practical. 


SELECT REFERENCES 


BrisToL, Social Adaptation, Chap. XVII. 

Case, Outlines of Introductory Sociology, Chap. II. 

Coker, Organismic Theories of the State, Chap. IV. 

Cote, Social Theory, Chap. XIV. 

Fite, Individualism, Lecture IV. 

Gippincs, Principles of Sociology, Book IV, Chap. IV; Descrip- 
tive and Historical Sociology, Part IV. 

Maclver, Community, Chap. VIII. 

MACKENZIE, Introduction to Social Philosophy, Chap. III. 

SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, Part II. 

Urwick, A Philosophy of Social Progress, Chaps. II-V. 


r CHAPTER XVI 


HUMANITY AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 


The Individual and Society 


To what practical conclusion do we come as to the relation 
of the individual to society, and of minor groups to the larger 
social life of humanity? We have seen that the individual 
and society are correlatives, and that there is no necessary 
antagonism in their development. The development of the 
individual comes very largely through participation in the 
social life, and on the other hand the social life is enriched 
through the development and achievements of the individual. 
This is not a circle in our reasoning, but it is the circular 
type of reaction which we find to exist universally between 
the individual and the group. 

As soon as we have familiarized ourselves with the con- 
ception of the social life as a process made up of many 
interacting, though continually changing, individual elements, 
it would seem that there should be little difficulty in grasping 
this conclusion. Nevertheless, we still find three conflicting 
theories as to the relation of the individual to society in 
present day thought. Some social thinkers hold that the 
individual alone is real, and that society is nothing but a 
grouping of individuals. According to this view all inter- 
pretations of group behavior must be sought exclusively in 
the processes of individual behavior. Other thinkers hold 
that ‘the individual is an abstraction, that the group alone 
is real, and accordingly that all individual as well as social 
phenomena should be interpreted in social terms. Still others 
hold that the whole question is a fictitious problem, and that 
the individual is society and society the individual, 

469 


470 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


All three views just stated we have tried to show are 
erroneous. Both the group and the individual are real, and 
both are effective in causing certain types of behavior. The 
exceptional individual, the creative individual, is a social 
factor who brings about changes within his group. The 
extreme social determinists are wrong in overlooking the 
individual. On the other hand, social factors, especially 
those of culture, creep into and mold the character and 
conduct of the individual. We must allow, in our study of 
group life, for the emergence of the relatively detached and 
exceptional individual who brings about changes within his 
group. On the other hand, we must allow for the molding 
influence of the custom and tradition of the group, and of its 
culture, upon the mass of its individuals. Neither can we 
deny the existence of the problem of the relation of the 
individual to society, or to group life. To say that there is 
no such problem is a simplification which realistic science 
cannot admit. It is true, however, that it is not a single 
problem, but many problems; for, as Professor Goldenweiser 
says, “The relation of the individual to the social varies 
both with the social situation and with the character and 
state of the individual.” + 

The human life which we know is a social life and the 
individual whom we know has gotten his development in and 
through the larger life of which he is a part. Normally 
there should be no antagonism between the development of 
the individual and the development of social life; but, as a 
matter of fact, such antagonism at times does develop. It 
is a fact that groups in their development, as we have seen, 
often put unnecessary and injurious restraints upon the 
individual, thereby repressing the normal development of 
personality and at the same time hindering the development 
of culture. On the other hand, individuals often develop 
selfish attitudes which are inconsistent with the welfare of the 


1 Publications of the American Sociological Society, 1924. 


HUMANITY AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 471 


group. Hence the constant question in practical social 
politics and in social ethics is how the interests of the 
individual and those of the group may be reconciled. 

The development of group life has as one of its condi- 
tions, as we have seen, a certain freeing of the individual, 
so that his personality will have the fullest opportunity for 
normal development. On the other hand, to emancipate the 
individual entirely from social control would be to make 
of him a mere animal, a sheer savage. The individual must 
have reasonable freedom if he is to contribute his best to 
the social life of the group, but the idea of developing the 
individual apart from social life and independent of it finds 
no support in either psychology or sociology. However, a 
strong trend of nineteenth century thought was in the direc- 
tion of the development of what we may call a “super- 
individual.” Such was the “superman’’ of Nietzsche, and 
the superior individual pictured by many more idealistic 
thinkers. The idea was that a superior individual might be 
produced who would be beyond any need of social control, 
whether of government and law or of religion and 
morality. Thus could be established a sort of anarchistic 
society, or a basis of pure individualism, made up of superior 
individuals, each a law to himself in most, if not in all, the 
relations of life. In such a society the ordinary restraints 
of law, religion, and morals would not be necessary, it was 
argued. 

Such a society, however, is an impossibility from the stand- 
point of sociology and social psychology. So far as the 
superior individual exists, he is a product, as we have seen, 
very largely of his social environment, that is, of the 
superior forms of social control which have guided his 
development. The socially superior individual, in other 
words, is produced by the constraining and restraining in- 
fluences of civilization, especially those working through such 
agencies of control as government, law, religion, moral ideals, 


472 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


and, above all, education. The movement to emancipate the 
individual from the obligations and restraints which society 
imposes upon him must be regarded, therefore, as a mistake, 
provided that such obligations and restraints are for the total 
social welfare. The individual, however, has a right to 
demand that the obligations and restraints to which he must 
submit himself shall not be arbitrary, but shall be rationally 
determined and for the good of human social life as a whole. 
This means that the standards which human groups set up 
and enforce through their customs and institutions should 
be not arbitrarily but scientifically determined for the welfare 
of the social whole. The antagonism between the interest 
of the individual and the interest of society can be resolved 
only by a scientific determination of the balance of these 
interests and of how they may be made to coincide. 

The fact that the human individual gets practically all of 
his development in a spiritual way from the social life in 
which he participates leads us to see that human progress lies 
not in the direction of producing a superindividual, or super- 
man, but in the direction of producing a superior social life. 
Social values are not carried by the individual alone, nor 
exhausted by the concept of personality. But they are also 
carried by institutional forms and group culture; that is, 
they inhere in a larger social life of which the individual is 
only a part. To pay attention merely to the development of 
the individual and his personality means often to overlook the 
value of institutional forms, of group culture, and of the 
larger life of humanity. It is for this reason that the nineteenth 
century movement toward pure individualism, the movement 
which was concerned simply with producing the superior in- 
dividual and which made the individual the source and seat 
of all social values, was a one-sided movement dangerous to 
humanity at large. It is a movement which must be trans- 
cended if a stable social life is to be realized. 


OO  ,  ————— ——— — = 


HUMANITY AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 473 


The Group and Society 


While our civilization has been trying to transcend in- 
dividualism, a new and more insidious danger has developed 
in group egoism. This is the tendency of minor groups to 
regard themselves as the units of development, if not as 
society itself. Western civilization will probably find more 
difficulty in transcending such group egoism than in leaving 
behind individualism. That this tendency toward group 
egoism may produce even greater social disturbances than 
individual egoism, the world of the present bears witness. 
Group egoism of any sort, however, whether it be of a class, 
a nation, or a race, rests upon the same fundamental fallacies 
as individualism. 

No social group can develop an ideal social life without 
an ideal social setting; for groups as well as individuals must 
form an environment for one another. As long as the rights 
of any group fail to be respected the rights of all groups 
will be imperiled. For example, national autonomy will be 
threatened so long as international equality and good will are 
not established. As long as nations have to arm to protect 
themselves from other nations, no nation can give proper 
attention to its internal social order; for while military 
expenditures eat up public resources, equality of op- 
portunity cannot be maintained, and an ideal social life 
cannot be realized. It is evident, as Professor Hobhouse 
says,” that “the cause of democracy is bound up with that of 
internationalism. ‘The relation is many-sided. It is national 
pride, resentment, or ambition one day that sweeps the public 
mind and diverts it from all interests in domestic progress. 
The next day the same function is performed no less ade- 
quately by a scare. The practice of playing on popular 
emotions has been reduced to a fine art which neither of the 
great parties is ashamed to employ. Military ideals possess 





2 Liberalism, pp. 237-249. 


474. PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


the mind, and military expenditures eat up the public 
resources. On the other side, the political and economic and 
social progress of other nations reacts. on our own. Physically 
the world is rapidly becoming one, and its unity must ulti- 
mately be reflected in political institutions. The old doctrine 
of absolute sovereignty is dead. The greater states of to-day 
exhibit a complex system of government within government, 
authority limited by authority, and the world state of the not 
impossible future must be based on a free, national self- 
direction as full and satisfying as that enjoyed by Canada or 
Australia within the British Empire. National emulation 
will express itself less in the desire to extend territory or to 
count up ships and guns, and more in the endeavor to magnify 
the contribution of our own country to civilized life....A 
nation as a whole cannot be in the full sense free while it 
fears another or gives cause of fear to another. The social 
problem must be viewed as a whole.” 

If all human groups form an environment for one an- 
other, then sociology cannot possibly stop with the conception 
of any social group as society. We now see that this is only 
a tentative conception for the sake of investigation and 
research into the nature of social life. We see that there 
is truth in the conception of society proposed by Auguste 
Comte, the founder of sociology, that society ts humanity 
viewed from the standpoint of its reciprocal relationships. 
At any rate, the ultimate unit of our sociological thinking can 
be neither the individual nor any minor social group, but the 
largest human group possible, humanity. 

It follows from this that no class or group, not even the 
national group, can be the bearer of all social values or even 
of a majority of them. Social values inhere in the total 
life of humanity. There is, therefore, as much need for the 
socialization of classes, nations, and races as for that of 
individuals. These groups, and indeed all human institutions, 
need to be socialized with reference to humanity, in order 


a 


HUMANITY AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 475 


that the larger life of humanity may be made to flow through 
them. It is not only the family and the local community 
which need a wider social spirit, but also economic classes 
and national groups. The selfishness of all of these groups 
obviously threatens the development of all humanity. We 
shall be successful in socializing the behavior of these minor 
groups of men, however, only if the individuals which make 
them up are socialized with reference to humanity at large. 
The family, the trade union, the industrial corporation, the 
state, the nation, and even the racial group will no longer 
manifest group egoism when their constitutent members have 
fully developed the humanitarian spirit. Purely group 
morality must be transcended, and the conscious ideal of all 
groups should be to serve the life of all humanity. Class 
and group consciousness in general should be replaced by a 
truly social consciousness, for groups no more than in- 
dividuals exist as ends in themselves apart from the rest of 
humanity, but as parts of humanity. Like the individual 
personality, however, each group is the bearer of certain 
social values, and each should be given its due place in the 
total social life of humanity. Only thus can we secure a 
harmony of interests among all social groups and their co- 
operation in promoting the welfare of humanity at large. 


The Meaning of the Social Life 


The question of the meaning of human social life belongs 
to philosophy and ethics rather than to sociology. However, 
much that we have said bears upon this philosophical problem, 
and a few words upon this question may not be out of place 
in concluding our discussion, in order to gather together and 
make clear the implications of this text. 

Three principal theories as to the meaning of our social 
life are to be found in the ethical and sociological writings of 
to-day. The first is the theory that the goal and purpose of 
human society, and therefore its whole meaning, is to be 


476 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


found in the happiness of individuals. According to this 
theory the subjective condition of a preponderance of agree- 


able over disagreeable feelings in the mass of individuals is 


the adequate and rational aim of human association. Without 
entering into a detailed criticism of this hedonistic theory of 
human society, it is perhaps sufficient to say that, if the view 
which we have striven to present is at all correct, no merely 
subjective element can be made the goal of human social 
development or give adequate meaning to that process. 
Especially cannot so subjective an element as agreeable feel- 
ing in individuals be made the meaning and goal of social 
development. For psychological reasons which we have 
seen, the concept of happiness is all but useless as a guide in 
the vast and complex forces of modern social life. No more 
elusive goal could be set for social development than the 
maximization of human happiness. It is notorious that it is 
not certain that civilization has added anything to the 
happiness of the peoples among whom it has been most 
highly developed. To be sure, this may be no necessary con- 
sequence of civilization; but the futility of the chase after 
happiness, enjoyment, comfort, and pleasure by all classes 
in modern society emphasizes the inadequacy of this ideal. 
This is not saying, however, that the happiness of individuals 
should not be included as one element in the end of a normal 
social life. 

A second theory of the meaning of human society found 
in the thought of to-day is that it is for development of 
personality, that is, the self-realization or self-development 
of individuals. Conceived broadly enough there may be 
perhaps little objection to this theory; but as we have already 
seen, the popular interpretation of this theory is that the 
self-culture and self-development of the individual is an 
adequate ideal of life by itself. This makes the end of social 
development again quite entirely individualistic. It is per- 
haps sufficient to say in criticism of this social and ethical 


a — pe 


HUMANITY AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 477 


doctrine that the meaning of the social life cannot lie merely 
in individual development, because individual development 
apart from social considerations gives no assurance of a right 
social life. It is this very ideal, indeed, together with the 
hedonistic ideal which we have just discussed, which is the 
source of most of the distintegrating tendencies in modern 
society. If there is to be any sort of unity in the social life, 
then the ideal of social development cannot be an individual 
superman or any number of individual supermen. 

We, therefore, come to the third and final theory of the 
meaning of our social life, namely, that it is not simply for 
the sake of individual happiness, nor even so much for the 
sake of the development of individual personality, as it is 
for the sake of the development of a harmonious and perfect 
society of individuals. Not the development of self, but the 
development of humanity, in a word, is the meaning of human 
society. Self-culture, or self-realization, is good as an 
ideal only in so far as it conduces to the development of 
humanity. The purpose and goal of society is the progressive 
realization of a perfect society consisting of all humanity. 
Self-development is thus only a means to a larger end. The 
individual lives not for himself, but for his race. Practically 
for the individual, therefore, the moral ideal becomes a life 
of service, a life in which he shares and strives to realize the 
highest life for all humanity. 

This ideal is ‘synthetic, because it includes all elements of 
permanent value in human social life; and it therefore an- 
swers the requirements of sociological science. It includes the 
ideal of self-development, because the development of person- 
ality in accordance with the requirements of a progressive so- 
cial life is the first condition for the realization of humanity. 
The individual finds his self-realization in the development of 
the life of humanity, not in arbitrary self-realization, but one 
conditioned by the needs of the larger human life of which he 
isa part. This ideal also includes the happiness of every in- 


478 PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN SOCIETY 


dividual; for the most efficient service and most harmonious 
social life can be secured only when reénforced by agreeable 
feeling. Thus the humanitarian ideal is synthetic of all sub- 
ordinate ideals, giving to each its due place and value, but 
taking from each the danger which comes when it is given the 
first place in life. 

This humanitarian ideal, moreover, is alone absolutely con- 
structive from a social point of view. It leads to collective 
achievement. Individualistic and hedonistic ideals are apt 
to be destructive of social possessions. They work not toward 
social conservation, but toward social exploitation for the 
benefit of special classes and privileged individuals. The great 
need of our civilization, therefore, is an ethics of service, a 
humanitarian ethics which shall be recognized by all in- 
dividuals and groups, and which shall teach all to find their 
development and happiness in the unselfish service of 
humanity. | 

It is often said that this ideal is vague, and that it has no 
definite content. The reply is that the development of human- 
ity must, in the nature of things, be not a static, but a dynamic 
and expanding ideal. It is an ideal of progress, in other 
words, and does not admit any more than life itself of com- 
plete definition. The direction of progress is, however, clear ; 
namely, that it is a progress towards a completer harmony 
of all factors, both internal and external, in the life of 
humanity. The process is thus one of the progressive 
rationalization of human life, and so of the progressive con- 
trol over the lower and more brutal elements in life by the 
higher and more spiritual elements. 

The outcome of scientific sociology must be, therefore, to 
point to, even if it does not establish, a humanitarian ethics 
and a humanitarian religion. Thus, as Comte foresaw, science 
in its final development as applied to the social life of man is 
in harmony with the highest developments of morality and 
religion that we know. Science, morality, and religion, there- 


HUMANITY AS THE ULTIMATE GROUP 479 


fore, should all unite in the work of realizing a perfected 
human social life, or in theological phrase, in the establish- 
ment of “the Kingdom of God.” 


SELECT REFERENCES 


Ettwoop, “Recent Developments in Sociology” in Haves, Re- 
cent Developments in the Social Sciences, Chap. I. 
Exitwoop, The Reconstruction of Religion, Chap. VI. 


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INDEX 


Abnormal classes, 185-187. 

Abnormal social conditions, 21, 
67, 87, 137, 161, 177-184, 185- 
187, 250-273, 302. 

Abstract thought, 10, 59, 60, 61, 


Wee LOT, 102, TOO): 15340175; 
192, 193, 194, 318, 324, 326, 
331. 

Accidents, psychic, 103, 193, 324, 
427/302, 

Achievement, human, 104, 193, 


311, 338. See Invention. 

Acquired habits, 6, 9, 10, II, 42, 
88. See Habit. 

Acquired traits, 9, 10, II, 42, 58, 
65. See Habit and Culture. 

Acquisitiveness, 294, 306. 

Action, group, 8, 9, 17, 81, 144- 
273} 

‘Action patterns, 61, 84, 89, 103, 
124, 128, 130, 133, 134, 324, 
ePrice 

Activity, point of view in psy- 
chology, 73, 75, 76; and so- 
ciology, 76, 465. 

Adams, Brooks, cited, 274. 

Adaptation, 5, 9, 19, 58, 60, 70, 
72, 73, 81, 92, 98, 99, 102, 146- 
150, 313, 426, 463, 464; and 
consciousness, 5, 9, 10, 71, 72, 
73, 98-100, 102, 313; social, 
5, 9, 60, 80-82, 98, 146-159. 
See Coordination, social. 

Adjustment. See Adaptation. 

Allport, F. H., cited, 15, 17, 38, 
85, 90, 187, 308, 357. 

Altruism, 55, 64, 66, 79, 96, 306, 
307, 330, 371-377, 381, 385, 
386, 387; connections with 


481 


sympathy, 372, 373-375, 386, 
387; definition of, 374; origin 
of, 55, 64, 66, 79, 376. 
Altruistic impulses, natural, 79. 
Alverdes, F., cited, 9. 
America, primitive cultures of, 
362, 363. 
Amusements, 132, 300. 
Anarchistic ideal, 400, 471. 
Ancestor worship, 211, 384. 
Angell, James Rowland, cited, 72, 
I15. 
Anger, 360, 370. 

Animal behavior, 5, 6, 9, 50, 57, 
58, 61, 87, 170, 234, 342. 
Animal societies, 6, 9, I0, 50-57, 

138, 234, 326, 342, 302; dif- 
ferences from human, Io, 57- 
50, 234, 320, 342, 302. 
Anthropo-geographical theory of 
society, 428-430. 
Anthropological method, 31, 33. 
Anthropology, cultural, 10, 66, 
209, 437; physical, 45, 49, 59. 
Antisocial traits of man, 67, 87, 
186, 202, 303. 
Applied social sciences, 27, 28, 29. 
Applied sociology, 27. 
Archeology, prehistoric, 67. 
Aristotle, cited, 274. 
Art, 10, 59, 64, I0I, 104, 207, 318. 
Assimilation, social, 204-209. 
Association, 5, 9, 14, 50-57, 59-65, 
II7-142, 144-273; classifica- 
tion of forms, I2-14, 117-121, 
138-142; factors in, II, 12, 15, 
18, | 50-57, *50-05;,  T1I-115; 
forms of, 12-14, 117-142; 
mental aspects of, 5, 8-12, 14- 


482 INDEX 


17, 18; nature of human, 10, 
11; of ideas, 223, 227; origin 
of, 4,5, 9, 50-57. 

Associational process, 14, 18. See 
Social process. 

Attention, 223, 228. 

Attitudes, social, 8) 15, 90, 91, 113, 
121) Wiles, 124-1275) LW IS0-132) 
134-137, 146, 153, 156, 446. 

Authoritarian society, 137, 139, 
142. 

Authority, 130, 142, 157, 222. See 
Control, social. 


Bagehot, Walter, cited, 226, 240, 
349. 

Bagley, W. C., cited, 115. 

Balance, social, 242, 244, 245, 246, 
247, 300. 

Baldwin. James Mark, cited, 38, 
115, 187, 249, 350, 351. 

Balz¢ Ai GAL rts (1822 

Barbarism, 67, 68, 139, 273, 292, 
303, 417. 

Barnes, Harry E., cited, 23, 25, 
32, 38. 

Barth, P., cited, 451. 

Bartlett, F. C., cited, 110, I15. 

Baulked disposition, 92, 299-302. 

Beard, C. A., cited, 134. 

Behavior, human, 5, 10, 17, 18, 23, 
24, 30, 58-65, 70-115, 275-389 ; 
group, 5-14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 30, 
144-273; levels of, 82-105; 
psychology as a science of, 
15, 17, 18, 22; sociology as a 
science of, 14, 15, 17, 22. 

Beliefs, social function of, 153, 
192-203, 211, 317, 320, 347, 
415; instinctive, 303, 304. 
See also Ideas and Social 
Values. 

Bentham, Jeremy, cited, 77. 
Bernard, L. L., cited, 78, 83, 86, 
94, I15, 276, 280, 287, 308. 
Biological conditions, II, 12, 23, 


42-65, 70-92, 94, 107, 112, 166, 
185, 189, 215, 280, 430-432. 
Biological theory of society, 40, 

207, 430-432, 458-461. 
Biology, 11, 20, 22, 86; relation to 
sociology, 22, 23, 30, 35, 86. 
Blackmar and Gillin, cited, 38, 
45I. 
Blood bond, 384. 
Boas, Franz, cited, 68, 213. 
Bodenhafer, W., cited, 13. 
Bogardus, E. S.. cited, 6, 115, 125, 
143, 187, 207, 249, 287, 339, 
364, 451. 
Borrowing. See Imitation. 
Brain. See Mind. 
Branford, V. V., cited, 37. 
Bristol, L. M., cited, 451, 468. 
Buckle, H. T., cited, 428. 
Burgess, E. W., cited, 27, 143. 
Bury, J. B., cited, 452. 
Bushee, F. A., cited, 38, 47, 68. 


Cannibalism, 67. 

Carver, T. N., cited, 452. 

Case, C. M., cited, 11, 31, 38, 48. 
66, 68, 134, 213, 452. 

Case study method, 3, 32. 

Caste societies, 181, 205, 208. 

Catastrophic changes, 266-268. 

Causation, social, 30, 36, 76, 145. 

Change. social, 14, 18, 19, 20, III, 
182, 214-273; mechanism of, 
182-184, 214-237. 
Chapin, F. S., cited, 68, 213, 249. 
Character, individual. See Indi- 
vidual as a social factor. 
Charity, social function of, 187, 
381, 382. 

Child, the, social significance of, 
54-56, 62-64, 122, 123. 

China, social conditions in, 210, 
438. 

Christianity, 32, 124, 129, 133, 136, 
388, 405. 


ee 


INDEX 


Chronic revolution, 260. 

Church, the, 136, 405. 

City life, 119, 136, 225. 

Civilization, 8, 10, 11, 23, 59, 65, 
68, 89, 92, 105, 109, 118, 120, 
129, 131, 140, 174, 209, 246- 
248, 315, 360, 417; an intel- 
lectual achievement, 104, 313- 
315, 322-330; dynamic, 246- 
249; reversions in, 268-273; 
sociology as a science of, ITI, 
20, 30; static, 209-212; and 
instinct, 296-308. See Cul- 
ture. 

Classes, social, 134, 135, 136, 161, 
179, 181, 256, 418, 473-475. 

Classification, of sociological 
problems, 19-21; of forms of 
association, 12-14, I17-I2I, 
138-142; of the social sci- 
ences, 28, 29; of the social 
forces, III-I14. 

Class strife, 161, 179, 181, 184, 
185, 252, 253-258, 271, 416- 
419, 473-475. 

Climate, influence of, 112. 

Coadaptation, social. See Coor- 
dination, social. 

Coker, F. W., cited, 468. 

Cole, G. D. H., cited, 143, 468. 

Collective life, 4-14, see Group; 
achievement, 338, 339, 449, 
see Social life; behavior, 5, 
7, 9, II, 17, 22, see Social be- 
havior. 

Collectivism, 245. 

Colvin, S., cited. 175. 

Combative instinct, 291-294. 

Common life, 6, 7, 12. See also 
Collective life. 

Communication, 4, 6, I0, II. 
Intercommunication. 

Communities, 7, 12, 13, 14, I17, 
118, 138-142. 

Comparative method, 3, 31. 

Compassion, 371, 374. 


See 


483 


Complex mental, 95. 
Component societies, 118. 
Comradeship, 4, 40, 201. 
Comte, Auguste, cited, 63, 85, 248, 
310, 311, 331, 414, 474. 
Confidence, function of, 154, 404. 
Conflict, 54, 150, 180, 181-185, 
253-268, 291-293, 416-419; 
and social order, 416, 417; be- 
tween groups, 180, 181, 291- 
293, 417; of classes, 185, 252- 
268, 416-419, 473-475; of 
ideals, 184, 415, 416; within 
national groups, 184, 253-268; 
within the social group, 181- 
185. 

Conflict school of sociologists, 
416. 

Conformity, social, 158, 291, 343, 
354. 

Confusion in periods of transi- 
tion, 242, 243. 

Conklin, E. G., cited, 68. 

Conn, H. W., cited, 69, 213. 

Consciousness, and bodily move- 
ment, 71-73; function of, 9, 
71-73, 98-100; its three as- 
pects, 113; origin of social 
nature of, 80, 108-111; selec- 
tive nature of, 73, 76; social 
functions of, 5, 6, 8, 9, 80, 81, 
93, 108-110, 152-156, 169-173, 
219-226, 310-380. 

Consciousness of kind, 49, 125, 
170, 207, 376, 377, 379, 381; 
connection of, with sympathy, 
49, 376-378; definition of, 
379; social function of, 380- 
380. 

Consciousness, social, 68, 126, 127, 
223-228. 

Conscious processes, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 
12; 16, 18, 34;.36;08. 

Conservation, social, 409, 478. 

Conservatism, 97, 212, 243. 

Constituent societies, 118. 


484 


Constraint, social, 157, 158. See 
Control, social. 

Constructiveness, 207. 

Continuity, social, 20, 21, 24, 188- 
212; cultural, 190-212. 

Contract theory of society, 453- 
457. 

Control, psychic, 7, 12, 18, 71, 72, 
SiG S20 100,202); 1059) and 
social order, 392-432; and so- 
cial progress, 411, 423-427; 
education as means of, 176, 
410-413; government as 
means of, 25, 174, 390-401; 
morality as means of, 175, 
406-410; religion as means 
of, 174, 175, 401-406; social, 
12, 25, 29, 127, 138, 157-159, 
173-177, 251, 252, 250, 392- 


413. 

Conventionality imitation. See 
Imitation. 

Cooley, Charles Horton, cited, 


13, 30, 74, 95, 109, 115, 122, 
T24\ 120; 187, 213,224) 306: 

CoGperation, 6, 52, 54, 55, 122, 
125-127, 131-133, 140, 149, 
158, 168, 380, 444, 449; origin 
Of 182.85 122") hee) 

Coérdinating feelings, 153. 

Coordination, social, 8, 147-159; 
definition of, 147; expressions 
of, 148-159; limits of, 159; 
types of, I40. 

Creativeness, human, 60, 81, 111, 
127, 235, 326-328, 363, 436, 
404. 

Crises, influence of, 81, 93, 90, 
102, 103, 220, 247, 420, 435. 

Critical and constructive periods, 
240-242. 

Criticism, public, function of, 
184, 220-222, 226, 258. 

Crowds, behavior of, 303, 348, 
356-358. 

Cultural evolution, 10, I1, 40-43, 


INDEX 


45, 57, 65, 118, 270-273, 206, 
324. 

Cultural groups, 7. . 

Cultural theory of society, 6, 9, 
II, 30, I7I, 192-203, 296-208, 
461-468. 

Culture, diffusion of, 323-326, 352, 
353, 300-367; nature of, 10, 
II, 59, 60, 89, 104, 138, 193- 
195, 296-298, 323-326; origin 
of, 10, 58, 59, 60, 64, 104, 193, 
323, 324; reversions in, 268- 
273; transmission of, 28, 190- 
212: 324. 

Custom, 8, 17, 25, 31, 63, 90, 91, 
122, 139, 190-192. 

Custom imitation, 190-192. 


Darwin, Charles, cited, 69, 378, 
434. 

Davis, M. M., cited, 187, 452. 

Dealey, James Quayle, cited, 38, 
452. 

Deductive methods in sociology, 
30, 34, 35. 

Defense, the process of, 50, 53, 

S450. 

Definition, 
of, 5. 

DeGreef, G., cited, 454, 450. 

Democracy, as a form of society, 
124, 129, 131, 135, 140, 221, 
233, 265, 334, 339, 399, 401, 
473. 

Desire, 19, 34, 84, 94, 286. 

Desires, the, as social forces, 8, 
84, 94, 96, 108, III, 113, 286, 
287) 352; 

Despotism, 139, 174, 212. 

Determinism, economic, 135, 433- 
438; social, I10. 

DeVries, Hugo, cited, 267. 

Dewey, John, cited, 26, 85, 88, 
I12, 113, 115, 147, 176, 187, 
190, 213, 220, 281, 282, 306, 
389. 


scientific importance 


INDEX 


Dictatorship, sociology of, 261. 
Differences, individual, 45-50, 245, 
414; of race, 48-50; of sex, 
47, 48. 
Diffusion of culture. 
ture. 
Discovery, role of, in society, 326- 
328. See Invention. 
Discrimination, mental, 220, 226. 
Discussion, social function of, 
184, 220-222, 226-228. 
Disintegrating ideas, 258. 
Disintegration, social, 
268-273. 
Dissolution, social. 
gration, social. 
Durkheim, Emile, cited, 315. 
Duprat, G. L., cited, 187. 
Dynamic civilization, 246-249. 
Dynamic problems of sociology, 
19, 20. 


See Cul- 


177-180, 


See Disinte- 


Economic determinism, 135, 433- 
441. 

Economic elements in the social 
life, 24, 36, 135, 204-296, 433- 
44I. 

Economics, relations to sociology, 
24, 25, 29, 30. 

Economic theory of social prog- 
ress, 433-441. 

Economic value, 24, 367. 

Edie, L., cited, 24, 308. 

Edman, Irwin, cited, 45, 115, 308, 


339. 
Education, 10, 26, 20, 63, 66, 68, 
92, 123, 175; 332, 410-413, 


445-448; as means of social 
control, 175-177, 410-413; as 
means of social progress, 
445-448; moral, 123, 412, 447; 
origin of, 10, 63; relation to 
social psychology, 26, 29; 
gocials) 129333) 4112s 
social function of, 175-177, 
332-334, 410-413. 


485 

Educational theory of social 
progress, 442, 445-447. 

Efficiency, social, 424, 427. 

Egoism, 78, 79, 161; of groups, 
161, 162, 399, 472-475. 

Egoistic theory of human nature, 
78, 79. 

Emotions, the, 44, 87, 94-98, 105, 
108, 113, 283, 315, 348, 365- 
380, 444. 

England, social conditions in, 265. 

Environment, physical, 37, 44, 73, 
75-77, 89, 106, 107, 163, 171, 
189, 216, 323, 428-435; social, 
30, 44, 62, 89, 92, 110, III, 
FEB SEH ISS h/T7 La IOt 210, 
323, 335; subjective, or psy- 
cho-social, 30, 61, 62, 110, 128, 
I7I, 191, 194, 314, 335, 448, 
464. 

Espinas, A., cited, 9. 

Ethics, relations to social psychol- 
ogy, 26, 20, 391, 421; human- 
itarian, 68, 388, 380, 408-410; 
importance of, 408-410. 

Ethnographic method, the, 31. 

Ethnographic parallels, 362-364. 

Ethnological theory of society, 
430-432. 

Eugenics, 186, 431. 

Evil, problem of, 88, 302. 

Evolution, cultural, theory of, Io, 
II, 40-43, 45, 57, 65, see Cul- 
ture; mental, 40, 43, 45, 58, 
50, 70-II5; organic, 20, 40- 
68, 70-73; social, 9-12, 19, 21, 
31, 40-68, 103-I1I, 322-339, 
421-451. 

Experience, 1, 36, 60, 61, 98, 99, 
107} 0129) 1245/7260, 0 321% 

Experimentation, social, 3. 

Exploitation, 150, 181, 478. 


Factors in association, I1, 12, 15, 
18, 111-115. See Association. 


486 


Family life, 55, 66, 120, 122, 129, 
130, 137, 222, 280, 455. 

Family, the, 13, 21, 55, 63, 66, 87, 
VIO; 220, e225 120; 130; 4180, 
153, 156, 183, 288; decay of, 
136, 178. 

Faris, Ellsworth, cited, 285, 423. 

Fashion, psychology of, 344, 354- 
350. ° 

Fear, 95, 139, 369, 403. 

Feeling, 8, 19, 78, 93-98, 105, 106, 
108, 112, I13, 152-156, 160, 
312, 365-380; as a_ social 
force, 8, I12, 113, 312, 365- 
370; as desire, see Desire; as 
instinct, see Instinct; as in- 
terest, see Interests; conser- 
vative tendency of, 97, 383; 
individualistic character of, 
04, 97, 306; role of, in society, 
5, 96-98, 152-156, 169, 170, 
312, 365-389. 

Findlay, J. J., cited, 128, 143. 

Fiske, John, cited, 63, 60. 

Fite, Warner, cited, 454. 

“Folkways,” 11, 80, 90, I5I. 

Follett, Mary P., cited, 37, 76, 
115,187, 220. 

Food process, 50, 52, 53, 56, 112. 

Force, use of, 267, 268, 417. 

Forces, social, III-115, 312; clas- 
sification of, 113; the theory 
Of TTD. 

Ford, James, cited, 27, 452. 

Forms of association, 12-14, I17- 
121, 138-142; classification of, 
12-14, II7-I2I, 138-142; defi- 
nition of, 117; practical im- 
portance of, 137. 

Fouillée, Alfred, cited, 459. 

Freedom of thought and speech, 
228, 230, 235, 247, 252, 255, 
264. 

Free ideas. See Abstract thought. 

Free society, 140, 174, 221, 247, 
204, 333, 334, 473. 


INDEX 


Freudian psychology, 92, 287. 


Gault, R. H., cited, 49, 115, 187, 
339. 

Genius, the, as a social factor, 105, 
335. 

Genius, nature of, 105, 335. 

Geographical determinism, 428- 
430. 

Geographical factors in the social 
life, 40, 42, 112, 113, 114, 188, 
189, 216, 428-430. 

Giddings, Franklin H., cited, 3, 
15, 16, 29, 38, 49, 60, 118, 125, 
126, 127, 140, 142, 187, 230, 
371, 376, 377, 379, 381, 413, 


414. 
Gillette, J. M., cited, 69, 452. 
Ginsberg, Morris, cited, 115, 213, 


339. 

Goldenweiser, A. A., cited, 12, 66, 
462, 464, 470. 

Good will, 130, 375, 381, 383, 418, 
419, 443, 444. 

Government, 10, 25, 59, 174, 396- 
401; as means of social con- 
trol, 25, 174, 396-401; origin 
of, 50, 64. 

Great man theory of history, 237, 
336. 

Greeks, social life of, 270, 330. 

Gregarious animals, 50, 53, 290. 

Gregarious impulses, 58, 66, 290, 
201, 344. 

Group, behavior of, 5-14, 15-18, 
22, 30, 144-273; study of, I- 
38; the social, 5-9, 12-14, 17, 
40-68, 138-142, 144-187; types 
of, 12-14, 117-121, 138-142. 

Group action. See Action. 

Group egoism, 161, 162, 399, 472- 
475. 

Group individuality, 159, 160. 

Group life, 4-14, 17, 40-68, 70-115, 
138-142, 144-187, 473-475. 


INDEX 


Groups, formation of, 13, 50-57, 
147-150. 

Group will, 159, 160. 

Groves, E. R., cited, 92, 115, 308. 


Habit, 6, Q, 10, II, 19, 27, 42, 58, 
60-63, 64, 88-93, 109, I5I, 
168; and adaptation, in so- 
cial life, 81, 82; social, 90, 
151, 183. 

Hart, Hornell, cited, 171. 

Hatred, 19, 160, 418. 

Hayes, Edward C., cited, 26, 38, 
452. 

Hedonistic ethics, 77, 78, 408. 

Hedonistic psychology, 77, 78, 95. 

Hedonistic theory of society, 78, 
454. 

Hereditary reactions, 44-50, 83- 
88. Sce Instinct. 

Heredity, 5, 9, 11, 23, 42, 44, 46, 
56, 65, 72, 83-88, 91, 112, 186, 
189, 193, 198, 207; racial, 48- 
50; “social,” 62, 198. 

Herrick, C. Judson, cited, 105, 
BIS. 385. 

Historical method, 30, 31. 

History, relations to social psy- 
chology, 8, 23, 28, 31. 

Hobbes, Thomas, cited, 454. 

Hobhouse, L. T., cited, 12, 18, 26, 
62,72; 75, 91, 115, 187, 191, 
193, 195, 196, 202, 213, 339, 
423, 473. 

Hocking, W. E., cited, 115, 308. 

Humanitarian ethics, 68, 388, 478. 

Humanity, 126, 375; 388, 389, 427, 
449, 474-478; religion of, 388, 
478; the ultimate group, 469- 
478. 

Human nature, 18, 23, 30, 44-48, 
74-82, 105-110, 122, 162. 
Human society, origin of, 9, 57- 
65, see Society; peculiarities 

of, 10, II, 57-65. 


487 


Ideals, conflict of, 184, 415, 416; 
origin of, 123, 124, 129-133; 
social function of, 68, 124, 
129-133, 153-156. See Social 
patterns. 

Ideas as patterns, 60, 61, 105, 124, 
I7I, 192, 194, 201, 258, 315; 
as social factors, 59, 65, 105, 
152-156, 170, 241, 310, 438. 

Ideological theory of society, 443. 

Imagination, 60, IOI-104, 126, 313- 
326,332, 372,373; 375; 381, 
442, 443. 

Imitation, 6, 9, II, 19, I09, I90- 
192, 216, 218, 341-363; as a 
conservative factor, 190, 358, 
359; as a factor in progress, 
218, 360-363; connections of, 
345-347; conventionality, 218, 
219, 344, 354; customary, I90- 
192, 344; definition of, 34I- 
344; instinctive or uncon- 
scious, 167, 342, 343, 347; 
psychology of, 341-347; the- 
ory of society, 349-351; role 
in society, 349-363. 

Immobility, social, 250-253, 255. 

Impulses, native. See Instinct. 

Inborn traits. See Heredity and 
Instinct. 

Individual, the, and organic evo- 
lution, 43-46, 58-65, 70-80; as 
a social factor, 6, 7, 8, 10, 17, 
22, 30, 43, 51, 58-65, 70-115, 
137; 159, 185-187, 212, 464, 
469-472; as a social product, 
30, 108-111, 137, 186, 472; so- 
cial character of, 30, 108-IIT, 
137, 162, 492. 

Individual differences, 23, 43-50, 
212, 245. 

Individualism, 79-81, 245, 246, 
469-473; philosophical, 79-81, 
110, III. 

Individualistic character of feel- 


ing, 94, 97. 


488 INDEX 


Individualization, 45, 245, 246. 

Inductive methods in sociology, 
30-34. 

Industry, 10, 38. 

Infancy, prolongation of, 55, 59, 
60, 62-64. 

Instinct, "9, '£0,/ 11) 18,119,223) "44, 

' 58,' 60, 66, 83-88, .167,) 275- 
308; and culture, 206-303; 
definition of, 85, 284; in 
past social theories, 276, 277; 
misconceptions of, 276-278; 
psychology of, 83-88, 279- 
286; role in society, 58, 66, 
286-308. 

Instinctive beliefs, 303-305. 

Instinctive interests, 303. 

Instinctive origin of society, 50- 
58, 66, 86, 138, 288-201. 

Instinctive reactions, 5, 58, 83-88, 
167, 279-286. See Instinct. 

Instinctive societies, 9, 58, 138, 
139. 

Instincts, and civilization, 60, 66, 
87, 296-303; and human insti- 
tutions, 86, 288-295; human 
nature of, 60, 83-88, 279-286; 
social progress, 88, 305-308. 

Institution, definition of, 91, 120. 

Institutions, human, 6, 8, II, 17, 
24, 31, 59¢ 90,/.07, 107, 120, 
151, 288-295, 319-322, 396- 
413; regulative, 173-176, 396- 
413. 

Intelligence, and human _ institu- 
tions, 319-322, 330-333; and 
social progress, 330-330, 442, 
443; as a social factor, 5, 9, 
19, 45, 58, 64, 98-105, 310-339, 
442; nature of, 98, 99, 316- 
322. 

Intellectualistic view of society, 
51, 65, 310, 311. 

Interaction, mental. See Mental 
interaction. 

Interaction, social, 5, 6, 14, 18, 40, 


54, 80, 81, 109, 144-150, 152, 
463; nature of, 5-9, 18, 144- 
146, 341, 346. 

Intercommunication, 4, 6, 10, II, 
58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 109, 110, 
128, 171, 176, ) 184; h2rgeeee: 
314, 323-325. 

Interdependence, social, 4, 5, 9, 
50-57, I10, 460. ; 

Interest groups, 118, 161, 179. 

Interests, as social forces, 8, 94, 
LUL)/113,\:114, DIS PGT ton 
179; instinctive, 303. 

Interstimulation and response, 4, 
5, 6, 9, 10, 15, 40, 51, 80, 81, 
109, II0, I2I, 145, 146, 148, 
152, 219, 463, 464, 465. 

Intolerance, 228, 252, 253. 

Introspection, sympathetic, 34. 

Intuition, 129, 315. 

Invention, origin of, 103; role of, 
in society, 103, 104, 217, 312, 
323-328. See Culture. 

Isolation, social, 208, 209, 210-212. 


James, William, cited, 71, 86, 115, 
280, 293, 360. 

Jastrow, J., cited, 115. 

Jenks, E., cited, 134. 

Jennings, H. S., cited, 44, 75, 115. 

Josey, C. C:, cited, 74,'278: 

Journalistic ethics, 233. 

Judd; |G eaten oars: 

Justice, social, 124, 132, 156, 180, 
398, 399. 


Kantor, J. R., cited, 278. 

Keller, A. G., cited, 69, 190, 321, 
340. 

Kellogg, Vernon, cited, 84, 85. 

Kelsey, Carl, cited, 60. 

Kidd, Benjamin, cited, 213, 315, 
366. 

Kilpatrick, W. H., cited, 88. 

King, Irving, cited, 410. 

Kinship, sentiment of, 63, 384. 


_—_——— — 


INDEX 


Knowledge, accumulation of, 323, 
328-330, 443, 444; social ef- 


fect of, 323-320, 443. 
Kroeber, A. L., cited, 11, 362. 


Labor, conditions of, 440, 441. 

Lamprecht, Karl, cited, 241. 

Language in human society, Io, 
II, 59, 60-62, 64, 103, 109, 
171, 207, 208, 215, 207, 324, 
325, 328, 437. 

Law, nature of, 50, 307; social 
function of, 174, 397-399. 

Law of the Three States, 311. 

Leadership, qualities needed for, 
237, 238; social, 46, 105, 210, 
220, 231, 232, 234-238, 2064, 
335-339. 

Learning process in human so- 
ciety, 10, 45, 58, 60, 100, 226, 
207, 350, 442, 447, 467. 

LeBon, Gustave, cited, 364. 

Leuba, J. H., cited, 420. 

Liberalism, 244. 

Like-mindedness, 8, 125, 169, 172, 
208, 371, 413-416; and social 
order, 413-416. 

Lilienfeld, Paul von, cited, 458, 
461. 

Lindeman, Eduard, cited, 2, 9, 14, 
17, 22, 23, 20, 38, 143. 

Lippmann, Walter; cited, 249. 

Locke, John, cited, 454. 

Love of approbation, 167, 201. 

Love, ethical, 130, 370, 373-375, 
388; of humanity, 98, 375, 
388; sexual and parental, 87, 
166, 289. 

Loyalty, 132, 134, 170, 180, 390. 


Maclver, R. M., cited, 12, 38, 91, 
II9, 120, 274, 468. 

Mackenzie, J. S., cited, 459. 

Maladjustment, social, 50, 185- 
187. 

Man, as an animal, 8, 45-48, 59; 


489 


a social animal, 8, 9, 30, 57- 
68, 73-80, 108-111. 

Martin, E. D., cited, 364. 

Marx, Karl, cited, 267, 433. 

Materialistic conception of his- 
tory, 433. 

Materialism, 36, 38, 56. 

McDougall, William. cited, 38, 
67, 73, 95, 98, 116, 155, 213, 
277, 344, 371. 

Measurements, social, 3, 33. 

Mechanism of social change, 219- 
7 yh 

Mechanistic conception of so- 
ciety, 36. 

Mecklin, J. M., cited, 420. 

Meliorism, 304. 

Mendel’s law, 280. 
Mental attitudes, 8, 89, 126, 146, 
153. See Attitudes, social. 
Mental evolution. See Evolution, 
mental. 

Mental homogeneity. See Like- 
mindedness. 

Mental interaction, the essential 
condition of society, 4, 5, 7, 
Q, 10, 15, 40, 51, I10, 145, 146, 
148, 152, 463. 

Mental life. See Mind. 

Mental measurements, 46, 49. 

Mental patterns, 60, 61, 103, 107, 
124, 120, I71, 241, 323-320. 

Mental processes. See Conscious 
processes. 

Metaphysical assumptions in so- 
ciology, 35-38. 

Methods, scientific, in social psy- 
chology, 3, 5, 6. 

Meyer, Max F., cited, 78, 93, 116. 

Militarism, 272, 473. See also 
War. 

Miller, Herbert A., 48, 121. 

Miller, Irving E., cited, 94. 

Mind as a social factor, 5, 10, 12, 
18, 45, 57-62, 82-107, 108-110, 
462-468; functional view of, 


490 INDEX 


5, 70-115; social character of, 
30, 80, 108-111. See also 
Psychic factors. 

Mind, the social. 
mind. 

Minimum wage, 441. 

Mob behavior, 259, 303, 356-358. 

Morale, social, 197, 395, 390. 

Moral ideals, 26, 63, 64, 104, 124, 
156, 175, 403, 406-410, 477; 
function of, 26, 156, 175, 406- 
410. 

Morality, 10, 59, 104, 126, 156, 
332, 383, 395, 406-410, 477; 
as means of social control, 
175, 406-410. 

Mores, the, II, 90, 151, 192. See 
Custom. 

Motivation, social, 95, 96, 253, 
367-370, 380. 

Motives, 17, 87, 95, 96, 368. 

Movement, bodily, 71, 72, 75-77. 
See Behavior. 

Miinsterberg, Hugo, cited, 187. 

Murray, Gilbert, cited, 305. 

Mutation, 45, 60, 310. 

Mutual trust, function of, 154. 


See Social 


National egoism, 161, 399, 472- 
475. 

National group, the, 13, 161, 181, 
202, 359, 473, 474- 

Natural science, and sociology, 
2-4. 

Nature of society, 4-9, 453-468. 

Negativism, social, 408, 412. 

Negro race, 49, 210, 377. 

Neighborhood group, the, 13, 21, 
66,9180). 20, 9723, E20, , 1.35; 
156. 

Novicow, J., cited, 149. 

Nutrition, 50. 


Objective factors in social life, 
12, 36, 37. See also Environ- 
ment. 


Objective method in sociology, 3, 
I2, 36, 37: 


Observation in social psychology, 


3, 32, 34. 
Occupation, influence of, 135. 


Ogburn, W. F., cited, 213, 2409, 
298, 209, 300, 309. 

Order, social, 150, 358, 382-384, 
391-419; and conflict, 416- 
419; and_ like-mindedness, 
413-416; and social control, 
303-413; and social organi- 
zation, 391; problem of, 391; 
theory of, 391-419. 


Organic evolution. See Evolu- 
tion. 

Organismic theory of society, 
458-461. 


Organism, society as an, 458-461. 

Organization, social, 19, 21, 56, 
81, OI, 117-125, 137-142, 150- 
152, 158. See Order, social. 

Original differences, 45-50; be- 
tween the races, 48-50; be- 
tween the sexes, 47, 48. 


Original human nature, 44-48, 74- 


82, 83-88, 92, 130. 
Originality, 23, 127, 235, 326-328, 
363. 


Origin of association among ani- 


mals, 4, 9, 50-57. 

Origin of society, 4, 9, 50-57; of 
human society, 10, 57-66; of 
social patterns, 10, 61, 62, 103, 
129-136. 


Paleolithic man, 67. 

Parental care, 54-56. 

Park and Burgess, cited, 8, 9, 11, 
12, 13, 23, 38, 48, 60, 112, 116, 
143, 187, 213, 249, 286, 423, 
452. 

Parsons, Philip A., cited, 32. 

Parties, function of, 118. 

Passive view of human nature, 
74-77. 





INDEX 


Patrick, G. T. W., cited, 270, 300, 
452. 

Patten, S. N., cited, 425. 

Pattern ideas, 60, 105, 241, 324, 
325. See Mental patterns. 
Peace, social, 67, 68, 166, 418, 4109. 

Pearson, Karl, cited, 1. 

Personality, influence of, 80, 81, 
III, 131, 138, 472; develop- 
ment of, 45, 80, 130, 138, 472. 

Pessimism, social, 175, 304, 404. 

Phenomena, definition of, I. 

Philanthropy, the function of, 
187, 381, 382, 386. 

Physical factors in the social life, 
4, 5, 23;:36, 40-65, 112, 113, 
146, 163-166, 178, 185, 188- 
190, 428-433. 

Physical science, 2, 3, 36, 76, 320. 

Plato, 428. 

Platt, Charles, cited, 116. 

Play group, the, 119, 123, 132. 

Play, nature of, 132, 299-301. 

Pleasure and pain, 77, 93, 95. 

Political science and social psy- 
chology, 25. 

Poverty, 254, 441. 

Press, the, social importance of, 
Wai 322)) 23%. 

Primary groups, definition, 13, 66, 
118; functions of, 121-133, 
203; social importance of, 13, 
55, 06, 117-142, 203. 

Primitive man, 66-68, 87, 320. 

Primitive social life, 13, 66-68, 86, 
175, 313, 320. 

Process, society as a, 9, 82, 464- 
466. See Social process. 
Progess and imitation, 218, 360- 
363; and instincts, 305-308; 
and sympathy, 384-389; and 
the intellect, 442-445; defint- 
tion of, 97, 423-427; one- 
sided theories of, 428-447; 
social, 20, 92, 97, 104, 105, 
212, 247-249, 305-308, 330- 


491 


339, 360-363, 384-380, 42I- 
451; sociological theory of, 
448-451; the problem of, 
421-423; the theory of, 421- 
451. 

Progressive society, 246-249, 333- 
339. 

Property, 204. 

Provincialism, 200. 

Psychic, definition of, 7. 

“Psychic dominants,” 241. 

Psychical factors in human so- 
ciety, 7-9, I0-12, 15-18, 10, 
146-156, 167-173, 192-203. 

Psychical nature of society, 4-12, 
15-18, 461-468. 

Psychical unity of society, 146- 
156, 461-468. 

Psychological analysis, II, 12, 15, 
18, 19, 22, 30. 

Psychological basis of sociology, 
5-0, II, 12. 
Psychological conception of so- 
ciety, 4-12, 15-18, 461-468. 
Psychological factors in associa- 
tion. See Psychic factors. 
Psychological method, the, 9, 11, 
15-18, 22, 23, 30, 35. 

Psychological sociology, 12, 15, 
LGM 19si22) 

Psychological theories of prog- 
ress, 442-445. 

Psychology,:0,\ 7) ° 12, tay 15, » 56, 
21, 27, 30, 35; definitions of, 
15; functional, 71-73, 81-107; 
hedonistic, 77; passive, 74-77; 
relations of, to sociology, 7, 
12, 14-18, 22, 23, 30, 35; So- 
cial. See Social psychology. 

Public opinion, 173, 201, 220-222, 
228-233; formation of, 228- 
233; social function of, 173, 
220-222, 228. 

Pugnacity, 292, 293. 

Purpose in human society, 9, 36, 
73, 100. 


492 INDEX 


Pyle, W. H., cited, 49, 95, 116. 


Qualitative analysis, 3, 33. 
Quantitative analysis, 3, 33. 


Race, as a social factor, 44, 48- 
50, 208, 211, 430-432. 

Racial heredity, 44, 431. 

Radicalism, 244. 

Rationality, 101-105, 233, 318-322. 
Rationalization, 303, 317, 320, 
322; of culture, 320-322. 
Rational selection. See Selection 

in Society. 

Reaction after revolution, 262. 

Reactions, native. See Instinct. 

Reason, definition of, 101, 318; 
the function of, I, IOI-I105, 
313-315, 318, 366. 

Reasoning, 60, IOI, 102, 104, 313- 
315, 318, 321. 

Religion, 10, 59, 174, 175, 2II, 
321, 388, 401-406, 408, 409, 
478; as a conservative factor, 
175, 211, 252, 402; as a pro- 
gressive factor, 402, 403; as 
means of social control, 175, 
401-406; humanitarian, 388, 
405, 409, 478. 

Repression, effect on behavior, 92, 
97, 179, 253-258, 263. 

Repression theory of revolutions, 
250-268. 

Reproduction, instincts of, 55, 84, 
87, 280. 

Reproductive process, social ef- 
fects, 50, 54-56. 

Reuter, E. B., cited, 48. 

Reversions in civilization, 268- 
273. 

Revolt, psychology of, 250-268. 

Revolutions, anarchy of, 250, 260; 
causes of, 185, 250-259; defi- 
nition of, 21, 256; mobs in, 
2590; peaceful, 256; preven- 
tion of, 264-266, 441; reac- 


tion after, 262; theory of, 
179, 185, 250-268. 
Rivers, W. H. R., cited, 279. 


Robinson, J. Harvey, cited, 1, 30, — 


PAKS 

Romans, social life of, 269-273. 

Ross, Edward A., cited, 11, 38, 
116, 143, 164, 187, 190, 192, 
207, 213, 242, 350, 354, 357; 
461. 

Rousseau, J. J., cited, 301, 454. 

Russian revolution, 257, 261, 26g. 


Savage society, 66-67, 130. 

Science and common sense, I, 36. 

Science, defined, I, 2; method of, 
3, 29-38; nature of, I-3, 202; 
social function of, 10, 104, 
202, 330, 338, 451. 

Sciences, divisions between, 21, 
22-20. 

Scientific methods, 3, 12, 29-38. 

Secondary groups, 118, II9, 134- 
137; 

Selection in society, 42, 44, 65, 
II2, 113, 178, 188; natural, 
42, 52, 58, 65, 112, 113, 188, 
199, 215; rational, 199, 230- 
232, 320. 

Selection, social, 184, 195, 220, 
221, 235,236: 

Selective nature of consciousness, 
PNAS 

Self-activity of the organism, 75. 

Self-consciousness, 158, 224, 225; 
social, 158, 223-225. 

Self-interest, 79, 370, 380, 381, 
383. 

Seligman, E. R. A., cited, 452. 

Sentiments, the, 95, 96, 113, 169, 
191, 375, 383-387. 

Service, ideal of, 409, 477, 478. 

Sex, as a social factor, 44, 47, 48, 
54-56, 166. 

Sidis, Boris, cited, 347. 

Similarity, organic, 44, 49, 166, 


a 


INDEX 


167, 189; mental. See Like- 
mindedness. 

Simmel, Georg, cited, 143, 187. 

Sims, N. L., cited, 190, 213, 274, 
340. 

Slavery, 67, 97, 252. 

Small, Albion W., cited, 14, 38, 
114, 116, 187, 286. 

Smith, Adam, 378, 383. 

Smith, Walter R., 143. 

Snedden, David, cited, 26, 143, 286. 

Sociability, 50-57, 66, 80, 108, 290, 
291; instincts of, 276, 290, 
201. 

Social adaptation. See Social co- 
ordination, and Adaptation, 
social, 

Social attitudes, 8, 15, 90, 121. 
See Attitudes, social. 

Social behavior, 5, 9, II, 12, 17, 
20, 22, 30, 33, 70-115. 

Social change. See Change, so- 
cial. 

Social classes. See Class strife, 
and Classes, social. 

Social consciousness. 
sciousness, social. 

Social continuity. See Continu- 
ity, social. 

_ Social control. 
cial. 

Social codrdination, 147-159; and 
cooperation, 149; and social 
control, 157-159; limits of, 
159; objective expressions of, 
150-152; subjective accom- 
paniments of, 152-156; types 
of, 137-142, 149, 150. 

Social, the, criterion of, 4-8, 9; 
definition of, 4, 9; not a dis- 
tinct realm, 9, 22, 35. 

Social development. See Evolu- 
tion, social. 

Social disintegration. 
integration, social. 

Social dynamics, 19. 


See Con- 


See Control, so- 


See Dis- 


493 


Social environment. See En- 
vironment, social. 

Social evolution. See Evolution, 
social. 

Social group, the. 
social. 

Social forces. See Forces, social. 

Social habit. See Habit, social. 

Social heritage, 11. 

Social heredity. See Heredity, 
social. 

Social immobility. 
bility, social. 

Social instincts, 276, 290, 201. 

Social integration, 21, 144-177. 

Social leadership. See Leader- 
ship, social. 

Social mind, 201-203, 315; defini- 
tion of, 201; formation of, 
201, 202; function of, 2o0I- 
203, 315. 

Social order. See Order, social. 

Social organization. See Organi- 
zation, social. 

Social origins, 50-57, 60, 65, 66- 
68, 86, 102, 139, 193-195, 207, 
324, 326, 328. 

Social patterns, 62, 89, 103, 107, 
128, 130, 133, 134, 153, 156, 
241, 325. 

Social phenomena, defined, 1, 14. 

Social practice, 27. 

Social pressure, 109, 157, 173. 

Social process, defined, 14, 82, 
146; nature of, 9, 11, 14, 82, 
146. 

Social progress. 
social. 
Social psychology, 14-18; and so- 
cial practice, 27, 28; defini- 
tions of, 15-18; methods of, 
30-38; problems of, 19-21; 

relations of, 14-18, 22-20. 

Social retrogression. See Dis- 
integration, social. 

Social science, 2, 209. 


See Group, 


See Immo- 


See Progress, 


494 

Social sciences, 3, 16, 22-20. 

Social solidarity. See Social 
unity. 


Social survey, the, 32, 33. 

Social survival. See Survival, 
social. 

Social unity, 20, 21, 122, 144-177, 
352; causes of, 162-177, 352. 

Social values. See Values, social. 

Social work, 27, 307. 

Socialism, Marxian, 433-438. 

Socialization, process of, I21, 122, 
125-128, 394, 449; and social 
order, 394, 395. 

Societal, 4. 

Societies, classification of, 12-14, 
117-121, 138-142. 

Society, constitutive principle of, 
7-9; contract theory of, 453- 
457; definition of, 4, 6, 7, 11, 
13; final definition of, 474; 
meaning of, 475-478; nature 
of, 4-9, 453-468; organic the- 

ory of, 458-461; origin of, 4, 
9, 50-65; psychological view 
of, 461-468. 

Sociological method, 3, 30-38. 

Sociological point of view, 15, 16. 

Sociological theory of progress, 
448-451. 

Sociology, problems of, 18-21; 
relations to other sciences, 
14-17, 21-29; static and dy- 
namic, 19; subject matter of, 
14, 15, 10,018, )22"s) unit of 
investigation in, I3; working 
definition of, 14. 

Solidarity, social. 
solidarity. 

Sorokin, P., cited, 256, 257, 258, 
250, 274. 

Sovereignty, 25. 

Speech. See Language. 

Spencer, Herbert, cited, 458, 450. 

Spontaneity of the organism, 75, 
76. 


See Social 


INDEX 


Static civilization, 209-212. 

Static problems of sociology, 19. 

Statistical method, the, 33, 35. 

Stimulus and response, 75-77. 

Stimulus, nature of the, 76, 77. 

Stratton, G. M., cited, 368, 370. 

Subjective element in human so- 
ciety, 6, 16, 36, 93-108, 152- 
156, 192-202. See Psycho- 
logical factors. 

Suggestibility, definition, 347. 

Suggestion, as a social factor, 9, 
II, 19, 347, 349; psychology 
of, 347, 348. 

Sumner, W. G., cited, 90, 120, 151, 
187, 

Superstition, 320. 

Survival, social, 424-427. 

Sutherland, Alexander, cited, 378. 

Sympathetic introspection, 34. 

Sympathy, 6, 9, 40, 64, 96, 98, 
122,\ 125, 4130, ,13hc 15451090; 
369-387, 444; and conscious- 
ness of mind, 49, 376-378; as 
a conservative factor, 382- 
384; as a factor of progress, 
384-387, 444; connections 
with altruism, 372, 373-375, 
386; Giddings’ law of, 376; 
origin of, 55, 64, 371, 372, 
376; psychology of, 370-373; 
rational or reflective, 372, 
373; role of, in society, 380- 
387; theory of society, 378- 
380. 

Synthesis, method of, 35; of so- 
cial movements, 450. 


Taboos, social, 402. 

Tarde, Gabriel, cited, 349, 353. 

Tawney, R. H., cited, 294. 

Taylor, C. C., cited, 33. 

Technology, influence of, 59, 64, 
103, 114, 437-440. 

Thomas, W. I., cited, 16, 31, 38, 
60, 286, 291, 367. 


INDEX 


Thomson, J. Arthur, cited, 2, 60, 


75: 
Thorndike, E. L., cited, 45, 60, 
72, 87, 116, 298, 350. 
Thurstone, L. L., cited, 6. 
Todd, A. J., cited, 332, 390, 426, 
448. 
Toleration, 122, 149, 207, 228. 
Tools. See Technology. 
Tradition, social, 8, 30, 37, 62, 63, 
1O2p FOn MT 220 lo.) TAT.) 12 
203. 
Transmission of culture, 58-62. 
Tropisms, 83, 84. 
Trotter, W., cited, 277, 300. 


Unconscious element in social life, 
86, OI, 214-217, 342. 

Unconscious changes in society, 
214-219. See Change, social. 

Understanding, social function of, 
49, 122, 125, 130, 131, 155, 332, 
375, 377, 383, 387. 

Uniformities, social, 6, 9, 10, 21, 
TO085372)\202) 275.351, 252. 

Unity, social. See Social unity. 

Universities, 238. 

Urwick, E. J., cited, 452. 

Usage, social, 89, go. 


' Values, economic, 24, 367; moral, 


495 


25, 307; social, 8, 12, 24, 58, 
65, 95, 96, 113, 122, 123, 124, 
153, 156, 170-173, 367. 
Variation, individual, 23, 45, 46, 
72, 110, 212, 333-335. 
Veblen, Thorstein, cited, 309. 
Vincent, George E., cited, 161. 
Virtues, social function of, 175. 
Voluntary groups, 118. 


Wallas, Graham, cited, 38, 213, 
254, 274, 312, 340. 

War, 67, 165, 180, 268, 272, 418. 

Ward, Lester F., cited, 30, 238, 
287, 311, 312, 338, 340, 373, 
378, 425. 

Watson, J. B., cited, 116. 

Will, popular, 159, 160. 

Williams, J. M., cited, 24, 25, 309, 
116, 187, 274, 309. 

Wishes, human, 94, 96, III, I13, 
286, 287. 

Wissler, Clark, cited, 60, 
306, 360. 

Wolfe, A. B., cited, 39, 92, 274. 

Woodworth, R. S., cited, 73, 82, 
83, 93, 94, IOI, 116, 309, 390. 

Worms, Rene, cited, 39. 

Wundt, Wilhelm, cited, 213. 


2096, 


Znaniecki, Florian, 115, 213. 


(2) 





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